Dialoganalyse VI/1: Referate der 6. Arbeitstagung, Prag 1996 [Reprint 2017 ed.] 9783110965056

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Beiträge zur Dialogforschung

Band 16

Herausgegeben von Franz Hundsnurscher und Edda Weigand

Dialoganalyse VI Referate der 6. Arbeitstagung Prag 1996 Dialogue Analysis VI Proceedings of the 6th Conference Prague 1996 Herausgegeben von Svgtla Cmejrkovä, Jana HofFmannovä, Olga Müllerovä und Jindra Svötlä

Teil 1

Max Niemeyer Verlag Tübingen 1998

Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme Dialoganalyse: Referate der ... Arbeitstagung = Diaiogue analysis. - Tübingen : Niemeyer. 6. Prag 1996. Teil 1. - (1998) (Beiträge zur Dialogforschung ; Bd. 16) ISBN 3-484-75016-2

ISSN 0940-5992

© Max Niemeyer Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Tübingen 1998 Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Printed in Germany. Gedruckt auf alterungsbeständigem Papier. Druck: Guide-Druck GmbH, Tübingen Buchbinder: Industriebuchbinderei Hugo Nädele, Nehren

Inhaltsverzeichnis Teil I / Table of Contents Volume I

Vorwort Preface

ix XI

I . Rhetorik und Argumentation - Rhetoric and Argumentation Sorin Stati Le texte argumentativ

3

Marcelo Dascal Types of Polemics and Types of Polemical Moves

15

Edda Weigand Emotions in Dialogue

35

Eddy Roulet Dialogism and Modularity. The Topical Organization of Dialogues

49

Ernest W. B. Hess-Lüttich Rhetoric of Dialogue in German Philosophy, Linguistics, and Literary Studies

61

Eddo Rigotti Zur Rolle der jcicm£ in der Kommunikation

77

Marta Spranzi Zuber Dialogue as a „Road to Truth": a Renaissance View

85

Massimo A. Bonfantini/Susan Petrilli/Augusto Ponzio Argumentative Dialogues and Non. Conditions of Dialogic Argumentation

91

Mario Baggio L'antanaclase dans le comique dialogique

101

Robert Maier Pragmatic Metaphors in Argumentative Dialogues

109

Peter Kosta Argumentation, Persuasion und der turn-taking-Mechanismus

115

Aldo di Luzio Observations on the Interactional Sociolinguistic Analysis of Disputes and Discussions

133

Christian Plantin L'interaction argumentative

151

vi

Sara Cigada Les structures nominales entre argumentation et manipulation

161

Andrea Cristina Ghita Dialogic Aspects of Lying

171

Georgeta Rata Argumentation et réfutation

183

Christoph Mischo/Ursula Christmann The Persuasive Effects of (Un-)Fair and Aesthetic Contributions in Argumentations: An Empirical Study

189

Ladislav Tondl The Importance of Dialogue between Science and Society

197

Rema Rossini-Favretti Dialogue in Scientific Discourse

211

Anna Duszak Relaxing Argumentation in Academic Texts

221

Marina Bondi Paganelli Dialogues within Discourse Communities in Economics Textbooks. Argumentative Roles and their Indicators in English

229

Q. Semiotische Aspekte des Dialogs (Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit, nonverbale Kommunikation) - Semiotic Aspects of Dialogue (Orality and Literacy, Nonverbal Communication) Deborah DuBartell Methodological Issues in Computer-mediated Discourse

241

Bernd Naumann Stirbt die deutsche Sprache? Überlegungen zum Sprachwandel durch IRC (Internet Relay Chat)

249

Patrizia Violi Electronic Dialogue between Orality and Literacy. A Semiotic Approach

263

Patrick J. Coppock A Sociosemiotic Approach to Processes of Textual and Interaction Norm Change in Distributed Virtual Environments

271

Gabriella Airenti Dialogue in a Developmental Perspective

283

Vil Jaromir Janousek Content Analysis of Dialogue: a Psychological Approach

291

Véronique Traverso Quelques phénomènes liés à la gestion des émotions dans les séquences de „confidence conversationnelle"

297

Jacqueline Zwobada Rosel Difficultés de communication chez l'enfant: dialogue finalisé, trilogue et énonciation. Méthodologie d'analyse d'un corpus vidéo

307

Christian Hudelot L'aide à la mise en mots de petits groupes de jeunes enfants „lisant" une affiche à la crèche et à la maternelle, ou Qu'est-ce qu' un „étayage langagier"? 317 J.-M. Odéric Delefosse Actes de langage en interaction oral/écrit

327

Maria Helena Araûjo Carreira Proxémique verbale: un cadre méthodologique pour l'analyse des dialogues

339

Dominique Boulet Les contraintes physiologiques de la gestuelle

345

Silvana Contenta L'idéation gestuelle dans l'interaction verbale

357

Anne Lefebvre De la prévisibilité des changements thématiques lors d'une conversation

365

EQ. Linguistische Ebenen der Dialoganalyse - Linguistic Levels of Dialogue Analysis Eva Hajicovä/Ivana Korbayovä/Geert-Jan Salience in Dialogues

Kruijff 381

Thomas Bearth Focus and Implicature

395

Carla Bazzanella On Context and Dialogue

407

Jiri Zeman Environment as a Stimulus of Communication

417

Ileana Vântu Semantics of the Dialogue

423

vili Liana Pop Répliques figées (Entre la lexicologie et le discours)

431

Maria Freddi Dialogic Usage of Some English Connectives

441

Giovanni Gobber Ansätze zu einer textsemantischen Analyse von Bestätigungsfragen im Dialog

455

Maria Cristina Gatti Pragmatische Aspekte der Negation in Dialogsituationen

463

Dubravka Sesar On Interrogative Utterances in Croatian and Czech

473

Frantisek Sticha Ich weiss es nicht. Ein deutsch-tschechischer Vergleich einer Antwort

481

Olga Tchesnokova Dialogic Motivation of Spanish Forms of Address

487

Iskra Likomanova Some Features of Slavic Dialogic Exchanges (on Material from the Bulgarian, Polish and Czech Languages)

493

Petr Sgall Problems of Dialogue Research in Spoken Czech

501

Dana Davidovà/Eva Jandovâ Problematik der Dialogforschung auf dem Gebiet der traditionellen territorialen Dialekte . . . 507 Christian Sappok/Karel Senkerik Analyse und pragmatische Interpretation Überlappende Repliken: auditive Zdena Palkovä Signifikante Lautqualitäten des gesprochenen Dialogs

517 527

Ljubov Lizalovä Fremdsprachlicher Dialog - Probleme der Intonationsgestaltung (auf der Materialgrundlage der russischen und tschechischen Sprache)

535

Tzvetan Jotov und sein globales linguistisches Modell Das Gespräch

543

Yong-Ik Bäk Benennungsprinzipien der Gesprächsbezeichnungen im Deutschen

551

Vorwort

Die vorliegenden zwei Bände der Reihe „Beiträge zur Dialogforschung" enthalten Referate, die auf dem 6. Kongress der Internationalen Assoziation für Dialoganalyse in Prag vom 17. bis 20. April vorgetragen wurden. Die vorausgegangenen Tagungen fanden in Münster (1986), Bochum (1988), Bologna (1990), Basel (1992) und Paris (1994) statt. Die von IADA veranstalteten Kongresse in Westeuropa fanden ihren Nachfolger in der Tagung „Dialogue in the Heart of Europe", die gemeinsam von den Repräsentanten der IADA und dem Institut für tschechische Sprache der Akademie der Wissenschaften der Tschechischen Republik organisiert wurde. Der Kongress hat seinen Teilnehmern 120 Beiträge angeboten. Acht davon wurden als Plenarvorträge gehalten, die anderen wurden in mehreren Sektionen vorgetragen. Die Kongressteilnehmer kamen aus 20 Ländern, nicht nur aus Europa, sondern auch aus dem amerikanischen und dem asiatischen Kontinent. Die Sprachen der Kommunikation waren Englisch, Deutsch, Französisch und Russisch. Die Themen der Beiträge zeigten ein breites Diapazon von Interessen, Methoden und Herangehen an die Dialoganalyse. Auf dem Prager Kongress hatten die Teilnehmer zum erstenmal Gelegenheit, auch mit einigen Vertretern der soziologisch und ethnometodologisch orientierten „Konversationsanalyse" (vor allem mit einem von ihren amerikanischen Gründern, E. Schegloff) zu diskutieren. Die Organisation der 106 Referate im vorliegenden zweiteiligen Sammelband der Akten oder Proceedings entspricht, im Grunde, der Anordnung der Partizipanten in einzelne Sektionen. 1. Ein grosses Interesse widmeten die Referenten dem thematischen Bereich von Rhetorik und Argumentation. Dieses Thema wurde von S. Stati und M. Dascal eingeleitet. Ihre Plenarreferate diskutierten einzelne Typen und Rollen, Funktionen, Strategien und Stile der Argumentation, wie auch die Mittel zur Persuasion und Manipulation. In diese Sektion gehören auch Beiträge, die der Rolle von Argumentation und Rhetorik in Fach- und Lehrtexten (in „academic writing") gewidmet wurden. Den Rundtisch zur Rolle der Emotionen im Dialog hat E. Weigand mit ihrem Referat eröffnet. 2. Die Sektion über Dialogsemantik enthält vor allem Beiträge, die offensichtlich eine der zukünftigen Perspektiven der Dialogforschung in die Wege leiten (sie werfen auch ein neues Licht auf die Beziehung „orality" - „literacy"): es handelt sich um Referate über die heutige Computerkommunikation, über e-mail Mitteilungen, über die elektronische Verständigung mittels der Internet-Netze. Eine andere merkwürdige semiotische Orientation, nämlich das Behandeln der Rolle von non-verbalen Mitteln (der Gesten u.ä.) ist speziell bei französischen Forschern in Vordergrund getreten. 3. In der Sektion, die der Beziehung zwischen Dialog und Grammatik (der „Dialoggrammatik") gewidmet wurde, findet man Referate über Syntax, Semantik wie auch Pragmatik des Dialogs, besonders über seine Kohärenz und Kohäsion. Gesprochene Dialoge stellen, selbstverständlich, auch das Objekt von auditiven, phonetischen Analysen dar. Seinen Platz fanden hier auch soziolinguistische Beiträge, die sich auf die Ausnützung von verschiedenen Koden konzentrierten. 4. Die umfangreichste Sektion des Sammelbandes fasst Referate zum Thema Dialog und

X

Institutionen zusammen. Die Möglichkeit der gegenseitigen Verständigung (Institution Öffentlichkeit) zieht die Aufmerksamkeit von Konversationsanalytikern wie auch von weiteren Interessenten für Dialog an. Die Plenarreferate waren hier von J. Heritage, P. Drew und M. Coulthard präsentiert. Unter den institutionalen Gesprächen waren vor allem folgende Sorten vertreten: Kommunikation in der Schule, Dialoge zwischen dem Arzt und Patienten, Verhöre vor dem Gericht und Polizeivernehmungen, soziologische Interviews u. a. 5. Einen speziellen Kreis der institutionalen Dialoge stellen Gespräche im Bereich der Massmedien und Politik dar. Diese Beiträge wurden auf dem Kongress in einem „Workshop" unter dem Begriffposiiioning konzentriert: auf der Tagesordnung erschienen auch mit ethnischen und Rassenkonflikten verbundene Dialoge, die Rolle von Vorurteilen und Stereotypen in dieser Kommunikation usw. 6. Die letzte Sektion umfasst Referate zu einem attraktiven Evergreen: es handelt sich um die Problematik des Dialogs (der Dialogizität) in den Kunstwerken. Das Thema hat F. Hundsnurscher mit seinem Plenarreferat eingeleitet. Die Interpretationen befassten sich mit prosaischen und dramatischen Dialogen sowie auch mit Dialogen in Film- und Musikwerken. Der Kongress hat also ein buntes Repertoire von dialogischen Themen gebracht, einerseits traditionelle Themen (jedoch oft in einem neuem Licht gesehen), andererseits neue Themen, perspektiv, oft überraschend. Es freut uns, dass die Teilnehmer mit der Prager Tagung zufrieden waren und dass sie die Kongressverhandlungen positiv bewerteten - und dass auch die Prager Linguistik zur verdienstvollen Tätigkeit der IADA einen Beitrag leisten konnte. Bei der Vorbereitung des Kongresses wie des Sammelbandes haben uns die Repräsentanten von IADA mit ihren Erfahrungen geholfen, besonders Prof. S. Stati und Prof E. Weigand. Wir möchten uns bei ihnen für ihre Beihilfe bedanken. Für das Verständnis für unsere dauerhaften Bemühungen auf diesem Gebiet danken wir dem Direktor des akademischen Instituts für tschechische Sprache, Herrn Prof. J. Kraus. Für seine Interessiertheit und effektiven Beistand wollen wir Prof. F. Danes unseren Dank sagen. Bei der Lösung von technischen Problemen, die mit der Vorbereitung der Akten für den Max Niemeyer Verlag verbunden waren, fanden wir Leistungen von Ing. V. Matejek und Dr. J. Krälik unentbehrlich und unser Dank gilt auch ihnen.

Prag, den 20. Oktober 1997

Die Editorinnen

Preface

The present two volumes of the series Beiträge zur Dialogforschung include the papers presented at the 6th Congress of the International Association for Dialogue Analysis (IADA), which was held in Prague from April 17 to 20, 1996. Prior to the Prague meeting, the IADA congresses took place in Münster (1986), Bochum (1988), Bologna (1990), Basel (1992), and Paris (1994). The congresses of IADA in Western Europe were in 1996 followed by the „Dialogue in the Heart of Europe" organized in collaboration of the representatives of IADA with the Czech Language Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The Congress participants represented twenty countries from Europe, North America and Asia. The languages of communication were English, German, French, and Russian. The participants could hear more than 120 contributions, eight in the form of plenary papers, the rest delivered in sections. The topics of contributions testified to a wide range of interests, methods, and approaches to the dialogue analysis. The Prague Congress participants enjoyed for the first time the opportunity to dialogue with the representatives of the sociologically and ethnomethodologically oriented „conversational analysis", particularly with one of the best known American founders of the discipline, E. Schegloff. The division of the proceedings (altogether 106 contributions) into six sections maintains, in principle, the time schedule of the Congress. 1. A great attention was devoted to the topic of rhetoric and argumentation. This topic was introduced by two plenary speakers, S. Stati and M. Dascal. The papers discussed various types of argumentation, argumentation roles, functions, strategies and styles, means of persuasion, and means of manipulation. The section also included the contributions tackling the role of argumentation and rhetoric in scientific and instructional texts, and generally in academic writing. The „Round Table" on the role of emotions in dialogue was introduced in a paper by E. Weigand. 2. The section on semiotics in dialogue contains mostly of the contributions which will probably open a new perspective for friture dialogue research and shed new light on the relationship between „orality" and „literacy". The papers dealt with computer communication, email messages, and electronic communication through Internet. Another conspicuous semiotic orientation featured French researchers who discussed the role of nonverbal means of communication, such as gestures and postures. 3. The section on grammar in dialogue presents the papers on syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of dialogue, and particularly on its cohesion and coherence. Spoken dialogues were subject to acoustic and phonetic analyses. The section also includes the sociolinguistic contributions focusing on the usage of various codes in dialogue. 4 The most comprehensive section of the volumes is devoted to dialogue and institutions. The possibility of mutual understanding between the professional representatives of institutions on the one side and the lay society on the other attracts the attention of conversational analysts as well as other linguists. The plenary papers were read by J. Heritage, P. Drew, and M. Coulthard. The section papers dealt with communication at school, in doctor's surgeries, during court and police interrogations, sociological interviews, etc.

xii 5. A special part of institutional discourse is represented by dialogues in the mass media and politics. These papers were concentrated in the workshop discussing the concept of positioning. The workshop treated the dialogues stigmatized by ethnic and racial conflicts, prejudices, and stereotypes. 6. The last section contains papers on an evergreen in dialogue studies, analysis of dialogue in works of art. The topic was anticipated by F. Hundsnurscher's plenary paper. The interpretations concerned literary, dramatic, cinematic, and musical dialogues. The Congress dealt with a diversified repertoire of dialogical topics, be it traditional ones, though often seen in a new light, or new, perspective ones, often even unexpected. We are pleased that the participants expressed their satisfaction with the Prague Congress and considered its programme valuable. Therefore, the Prague linguists could contribute to the successful activity of the International Association for Dialogue Analysis. In preparing of both the Congress and the Proceedings we highly appreciated the encouragement and advice of the representatives of IAD A, particularly Prof. S. Stati and Prof. E. Weigand, who deserve our sincere gratitude. Our thanks also go to Prof. J. Kraus, the Director of the Czech Language Institute, for understanding our dialogue analysis activities. We are indebted to Prof. F. Danes for his demonstrated interest in the advancement of the Congress, and for his effective support during the preparation of the Proceedings. We acknowledge a debt of gratitude to our colleagues, Dr. Jan Krâlik and Vlastimil Matëjek, M.Sc., without whose kind assistance in solving technical problems we would not have been able to prepare these volumes. Prague, October 20, 1997

From the editors

Sektion / Section I

Rhetorik und Argumentation Rhetoric and Argumentation

Sorin Stati

Le texte argumentatif

1. Persuasion ou acceptabilité? 2. Conflit et/ou coopération? 3. L'inventaire des rôles argumentatifs 4. Para-argumentation 5. Logique et argumentation 6. Système et structure 7. Séquences bien vs mal formées 8. Types de texte et mélanges Références

1. Persuasion ou acceptabilité? Le but de la présente communication est de mettre en évidence des points critiques et des doutes méthodiques concernant l'analyse linguistique de l'argumentation, telle qu'elle est conçue dans les derniers temps. L'argumentation sera envisagée dans ce qui suit uniquement comme processus langagier, discursif. En réalité l'argumentation est aussi un processus mental dont l'étude revient à la logique et sans doute aussi à la psychologie. Nous allons parler de l'argumentation en tant que processus discursif qui se déroule à travers une succession d'actes de langage que nous appelons „rôles argumentatifs". Argumenter c'est enchaîner des actes de langage tels que Thèse, Preuve, Justification, Objection. On considère généralement que pour qu'il soit appelé „argumentatif' un texte doit contenir au moins une Thèse et une proposition d'Appui ou de Rejet. La nature argumentative d'un énoncé conçu comme pièce dans un enchaînement transphrastique se définit par son but, à savoir persuader. Remarquons que le terme „persuasion" recouvre deux significations: il s'agit d'une intention du locuteur, mais aussi d'un effet produit sur le destinataire, le résultat voulu (et perçu comme tel) de l'énonciation du texte. La première critique visant la conception courante de l'argumentation est justement cette essence: la persuasion. On a proposé de remplacer „persuasion", notion subjective et incontrôlable par excellence, par „acceptabilité": „argumentation = a speech act designed to justify or refute a proposition by convincing another person, who acts reasonably, of the acceptability of a position or negative standpoint with respect to this proposition" (Van Eemeren, F./Grootendorst, R. 1991, 154f). Mais être persuadé par une Thèse est tout aussi subjectif qu'accepter une Thèse. Rappelons en passant le critère de Perelman, qui parlait de „adhésion", un autre critère sans doute subjectif. A

Sorin

4

Stati

notre avis, la subjectivité, loin d'être un défaut, est la caractéristique principale du discours argumentatif, puisque le locuteur construit son raisonnement de manière à être efficace dans une circonstance déterminée et par un certain destinataire (et non pas pour n'importe quel être doué de raison). Le locuteur emploie normalement des schémas logiques, correctes ou fallacieux, et cette base donne à son discours une certaine objectivité. En outre, l'objectivité est propre de beaucoup de discours argumentatifs qui ont une portée générale puisqu'ils s'adressent à un vaste auditoire, à l'opinion publique. En résumé, construire un discours argumentatif c'est présenter (formuler) comme acceptables (puisque raisonnables!) des propositions ayant une fonction pragmatique; c'est demander au destinataire l'adhésion à ces propositions, qui ne sont pas nécessairement des Thèses mais peuvent tout aussi bien être des Critiques, des Conséquences etc. Quant à la nature de la fonction pragmatique la question reste ouverte aux doutes et aux critiques. On parle d'habitude de persuasion à propos de Thèses, et par ce terme on désigne normalement des phrases déclaratives, des assertions (cf. Woods, J./Walton, D. 1992, 7). Toutefois, selon nous, l'argumentation peut avoir comme Cible non seulement des assertions, mais aussi des questions, des actes directifs (Stati 1990). Si la Thèse est une question sincère, l'accepter signifie la considérer comme justifiée, comme sensée, comme ayant au moins une réponse vraie. Enfin, si la Thèse est un acte directif, l'accepter voudra dire être disposé à l'exécuter, la croire raisonnable, justifiée. Pour illustrer la variété pragmatique des Thèses nous analyserons quelques exemples: (a) Assertion: On trouvait ça et là des femmes appréciant des aveugles [Thèse]; il ne fallait pas s'exagérer le malheur de n'avoir plus d'yeux [Appui]. (Yourcenar 1968, 319)

L'énonciation de la deuxième phrase a pour but de rendre plausible le contenu de la première, de la justifier; reste à préciser - question secondaire - si la justification appartient à l'auteur ou s'il reproduit la justification donnée par d'autres personnes. (b) Question: Et Hemon? Et ton fiancé? [Thèse] Car elle est fiancée [Justification] (Anouilh 1969, 49).

(c) Expression performative: Je vous demande pardon! [Thèse] C'est inexcusable! J'ai fait une erreur de rouleau! Je l'avais pourtant soigneusement étiqueté, mais la domestique, en rangeant, a dû déplacer l'étiquette [Séquence typique pour donner de la crédibilité à une excuse] (Anouilh 1959, 49).

Anscombre et Ducrot (cit. par Moeschler, J./Reboul, A. 1995, 313) établissent une différence entre „argumentation" et „inférence". Cf. la séquence monologique:

Le texte argumentatif

5

Je ne suis pas si méchant que ça? Tiens, prends ma voiture pour aller au cinéma [ A r g u m e n t a t i o n ] .

et le couple dialogique: A: Pierre a téléphoné. Il viendra demain./B: Alors tu dois être content [ I n f é r e n c e ] .

Il est vrai que dans le premier exemple le binôme [Thèse + Preuve] fait que l'intention de persuader le destinataire soit évidente. Dans notre conception de l'argumentation, la réaction du second exemple prouve le désir du locuteur d'être persuadé: il formule une Hypothèse ou Conjecture (qui se réalise à travers une „requête de confirmation"). Nous avons affaire à un rôle argumentatif passif (Stati 1994). D'ailleurs l'inférence est un mécanisme logique tout comme l'argumentation.

2. Conflit et/ou coopération? Très souvent dans l'analyse d'un processus argumentatif on a recours à la notion de Justification"; or, la justification suggère un rapprochement avec la notion de „conflit": en effet, on se justifie pour éviter un conflit (probable) avec l'allocuteur, ou bien, si le conflit s'est déjà produit, pour l'aplanir. Selon une opinion assez répandue, il y aurait équivalence entre argumentation et conflit verbal (cf. d'ailleurs le sens du mot anglais argument). C'est la deuxième critique de la conception traditionnelle que nous avons voulu soulever. Van Eemeren, F./Grootendorst, R. (1991, 162) citent à ce propos la séquence: Let's take a cab. You don't want to be late for the show, do you?

et y voient argumentation conflictuelle: ,,By adding the rhetorical question to his proposai the speaker tries to resolve a potential dispute with the listener in advance". Par conséquent le but de l'argumentation (de toute argumentation?) serait „resolving a dispute". Pour nous il ne s'agit là que d'une espèce d'argumentation, vu qu'il existe aussi des dialogues argumentatifs dont les interlocuteurs collaborent afin de résoudre en commun un problème: „1 partecipanti concordano sulla tesi ma si sforzano di trovare insieme argomenti a favore"; on énonce des phrases à caractère argumentatif „a favore di un'opinione espressa da altri ma giustificata attraverso argomenti diversi da quelli usati da chi l'ha inizialmente espressa". (Lo Cascio 1991, 76, 229). On voit l'intention de collaborer dans une séquence telle que: Vous voulez savoir pourquoi vous êtes condamné? Je vais vous le dire. C'est bien vous que avez traitée (...) (cit. par Kesik 1989, 79 comme exemple de „anacataphore").

6

Sorin Stati

Une autre espèce d'argumentation non polémique est „l'interprétation" des textes de loi, „in which one argues for a particular understanding of authoritative texts or materials as a special kind ofjustifying reason for legal decisions" (Mac Cormick 1993). Dascal (1995, 104-105) classifie les échanges polémiques en: disputes, discussions et controverses.

Sur les traits distinctifs de „la stratégie polémique" voir Stati 1995b.

3. L'inventaire des rôles argumentatifs Les travaux récents n'offrent pas d'inventaire des „argumentative moves", ce qui rend plutôt vulnérable la théorie linguistique de l'argumentation. De la terminologie usuelle on peut mentionner: - Thème (angl. Claim)-, - Preuve (avec une riche classification qui trouve ses racines dans l'antiquité; par exemple, les preuves per inductionem exempta; per deducîionem: argumenta, l'argument de Yauctoritas: „magister dixit" etc.); - Réfutation; - Objection et très peu d'autres. Dans la théorie des actes de langage les rôles argumentatifs sont en partie regroupés sous la rubrique „expositive speech acts" (Austin): argumenter, expliquer, accepter, exemplifier, illustrer, confirmer, démentir etc. (Sbisà 1989, 178), mais beaucoup d'auteurs mélangent les forces illocutionnaires avec les rôles argumentatifs. Dans plusieurs de nos ouvrages nous avons présenté une liste plus longue, mais sans avoir la prétention d'être arrivés à un inventaire complet. Nous avons précisé ci-dessus 1. la notion de Thèse. Il convient d'ajouter un doute: est-ce que la Thèse se distingue nettement de la Conclusion? Cf. „La thèse ou conclusion dont nous cherchons à établir la valeur etc." (Toulmin 1993, 120). Très souvent on a l'impression que la Thèse est la proposition qui précède sa Justification et que si l'énonciation des idées commençait par la Justification, la Thèse deviendrait une Conclusion. Une distinction nouvelle que nous avons introduit est celle entre rôles actifs (qui persuadent) et passifs (qui témoignent du désir du locuteur d'être persuadé. Cf. la Requête d'informations supplémentaires). Il y a ensuite toute une série de rôles positifs (Accord) et négatifs (Désaccord, Antithèse, Rectification, Critique, Objection), et des rôles qui ne sont ni positifs, ni négatifs, par exemple: Concession, Conséquence, Conjecture ou Hypothèse et „Prise de connaissance", qui ressemble formellement à l'Accord. En voici un exemple: A: Appelle la bonne [Thèse]./B: Il n'y a plus de bonne [Objection],/A: Parfait [Prise de connaissance]. J'enverrais dès demain deux gardes qui (...) s'occuperont du ménage. (Cocteau 1992, 28).

Le texte argumentatif

7

Une espèce à part est ce que nous appelons „Annonce d'une Thèse", qui n'a pas été signalée auparavant: Vous voulez que je vous dise mon sentiment? X était un parfait mufle, voilà tout! (Anouilh 1969, 39); Tu y porteras des lettres personnelles de moi, à chaque évêque en particulier [Thèse], Et tu sais ce que contiennent ces lettres? [Annonce d'une Thèse] Ma volonté royale de te voir élevé Primat. (Anouilh 1959, 76); Ne t'offense pas, Caius, de ce que je vais te dire. Mais tu devrais d'abord te reposer (Camus 1958, 27).

Le rôle argumentatif d'une proposition est établi en fonction d'une proposition co-textuelle appelée Cible. Le rôle argumentatif est une propriété foncièrement relationnelle (Stati 1990, 67). Il nous semble que parfois le texte argumentatif présente des phrases ayant deux Cibles: A: Je suis le plus fort ou je ne suis pas le plus fort?/B: Vous êtes le plus fort, aujourd'hui. C'est pourquoi il faut être particulièrement courtois avec l'évêque. (Anouilh 1959, 68).

La phrase „Vous êtes le plus fort, aujourd'hui" est en même temps une Rectification de la précédente et la Justification de la dernière.

4.

Para-argumentation

Maintes fois on est confronté avec des argumentations masquées, implicites, et il n'est pas rare qu'une telle argumentation passe inaperçue. On pourra se demander le pourquoi du manque presque total de recherches à ce sujet. Il faudra maintenir distinctes: (a) argumentation explicite, par exemple lorsqu'une Thèse est appuyée par une preuve ou rejetée par un Désaccord ou une Objection, et (b) argumentation implicite, que nous préférons appeler „para-argumentation". Elle se réalise grâce à des moyens lexicaux tels que sûr, de toute évidence, il faut, nous devons, nécessaire, il est exclu, croyez-moi, il ne fait pas de doutes que, etc. Voici quelques exemples littéraires: A: Il faut être particulièrement courtois avec l'évêque./ B: Courtois? Avec un vaincu! (Anouilh 1959, 68); A: On ne les trompe pas, les bons Pères, tandis qu'on trompe les imbéciles./B: Erreur, profonde erreur! On voit bien, mon cher, que vous ne connaissez pas l'électorat. Je le connais moi (France 1986, 190).

Comme réaction à un discours ayant recours à la para-argumentation, le partenaire énonce souvent une Rêquete de preuves, comme dans: A: Tu devrais d'abord te reposer. / B: Ce n'est pas possible, Helicon, cela n'est plus jamais possible./ A: Et pourquoi donc? (Camus 1958, 27).

Voir aussi l'emploi argumentatif des adjectifs évaluatifs. „Parfois - écrivait Schopenhauer (1991, 33) - ce que l'on veut prouver on le met d'avance dans le mot" et c'est pour cette raison qu'on

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emploie des mots connotés: Schopenhauer cite des couples de termes [neutres vs connotés] comme: piété, ferveur vs bigoterie, superstition. La dichotomie établie par Plantin (1990, 15 lf) entre énoncés hétéro-argumentés (une séquence Thèse + Preuve) et auto-argumentés (un seul énoncé qui contient en lui-même sa justification, affirmée mais pas prouvée, comme dans „Seb c'est bien" nous semble proche de notre dichotomie „argumentation vs para-argumentation". La question mérite d'être approfondie. De toute façon la frontière entre (vraie) argumentation et para-argumentation n'est pas facile à tracer. De tout ceci il faut séparer les „stratagemmes" auxquels Schopenhauer a dédié un opuscule (Schopenhauer 1991): la „dialectique éristique est l'art de mener une dispute afin d'arriver per fas et ne/as - à gagner la victoire, même si elle sacrifie la vérité. Comme on a maintes fois répété la vérité ne coïncide pas nécessairement avec la validité d'une opinion qui dépend des circonstances et de la personne du locuteur. L'habilité de l'orateur qui consiste à mettre l'adversaire en contradiction avec lui-même ou bien à utiliser contre l'adversaire un de ses propres arguments (la retorsio argumenti (p. 48) - ce que nous appelons „argument boomerang" - peut très bien rester dans les limites de la moralité: dialectique ne veut pas dire manipulation du langage. L'art des sophistes de prouver n'importe quelle thèse et son contraire relève de l'usage malhonnête de la technique rhétorique, mais ne constitue pas un exemple de para-argumentation.

5. Logique et argumentation Le point le plus délicat de notre discussion autour de la nature des textes argumentatifs concerne le rapport avec la logique. Il s'agit du rapport entre rhétorique et logique ainsi que du fameux binôme „logique pure vs logique naturelle". Aussi bien en rhétorique et en logique naturelle qu'en logique pure nous avons affaire à des „tentativi di garantire l'accettazione razionale di una tesi, mediante un collegamento della conclusione ad altre credenze o conclusioni già condivise. Le accomunano la natura inferenziale e la funzione probatoria" (Cattani 1990, 29). Pour ce qui est de la différence entre rhétorique et logique on a énuméré les oppositions suivantes: la rhétorique est basée sur une culture littéraire, sur la probabilité et l'hétéronomie, tandis que la logique est scientifique, elle opère avec le concept de vérité et elle est autonome (Preti cit. par Cattani 1990, 18).

Aristote faisait la distinction entre le raisonnement analytique (aujourd'hui la logique formelle) et le raisonnement dialectique, c'est-à-dire la rhétorique. La dialectique était dans l'antiquité le „dialogo in contraddittorio e l'argomentazione a partire da premesse probabili" (Cattani 1991, 47). L'argumentation est un processus discursif fondé sur la raison de celui qui le produit et sur la bonne volonté du partenaire, qui est disposé à raisonner. Le processus argumentatif présuppose l'usage de la raison, l'appel à la raison. Ceci implique un rapport étroit entre la nature de

Le texte argumentatif

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l'argumentation dans tous les types de textes et le mécanisme de la pensée, l'analyse des raisonnements. On connaît la distinction entre la „logique pure ou proprement-dite" et la „logique naturelle". Mais la distinction est loin d'être suffisamment claire. De toute façon, la nature rationnelle de l'argumentation est conciliable aussi bien avec la rigueur de l'enchaînement logique, valable en toute situation, donc d'une portée très générale, que pour le discours en monologue ou dialogue en langue courante. En effet, „l'exercice du jugement rationnel s'accomplit lui-même dans un contexte particulier et en est essentiellement dépendent; les arguments que nous rencontrons sont exposés à un moment et dans une situation donnée, et lorsque nous entreprenons de les évaluer, il convient de les juger, en tenant compte de ce contexte" (Toulmin 1993, 226). Beaucoup d'auteurs considèrent que l'épithète „logique" convient au respect de propriétés formelles, cf. „Demander si un argument est valide, c'est demander s'il est formé correctement". En effet, „le vrai objet de l'étude logique" est représenté par „les relations formelles entre les différents types de propositions" (Toulmin 1993, 7). Rappelons brièvement la conception selon laquelle les considérations logiques s'occupent uniquement de formalités préliminaires, et pas de la valeur réelle d'un argument (Toulmin 1993, 253). Pour certains auteurs, dans l'argumentation la vérité ne compte pas: la logique poursuit la vérité, tandis que l'argumentation poursuit l'efficacité, le succès, manifestés par la persuasion. Pour d'autres c'est juste le contraire. Cf. „The aim of all argumentation is to establish the truth value [c'est nous qui soulignons] or acceptability of certain propositions". Cette recherche est dominée par des „rational rules" réparties en deux classes: les règles de la logique et les règles d'évaluation issues de l'évidence empirique (Mac Cormick 1993). L'expérience prouve que dans la conversation on accepte des Preuves que la logique n'accepterait pas. Souvent „nous lançons des affirmations concernant le futur, et les soutenons par référence à notre expérience de la manière dont les choses se sont déroulées dans le passé" (Toulmin 1993, 153). Moeschler et Reboul (1995, 302f) citent comme exemples de contradiction logique associée à la cohérence argumentative les couples de répliques: A: Dupont, vous êtes encore en retard./B: Oui, mais j'étais presque à l'heure. A: Est ce que le dîner est prêt?/B: Oui, presque.

On a d'abord des situations faciles à analyser, par exemple des raisonnements fallacieux qui se révèlent quand même très efficaces dans une situation particulière. Ou bien le syllogisme, qui dans sa forme canonique, avec trois propositions, n'apparaît qu'exceptionnellement dans un texte écrit ou oral de la langue courante. Parmi les cas relativement simples, nous rangeons des formulations correctes mais que la performance refuse malgré leur parfaite logicité: If Alice knew that Bob knew that Charlie was wearing a red shirt, then Alice would have known that Bob would have known that Charlie couldn't have been in the pantry at midnight. But Alice didn't know this. (Fagin et alii 1995, XI).

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Au contraire, le cas suivant représente une difficulté: comment analyser les propositions causales? Ajouter „parce que q" après la proposition „p" peut signifier (a) qu'entre p et q il y a objectivement, indépendamment du locuteur, une relation causale, et ceci peut constituer un bon argument; (b) la causalité est subjective: étant posée par le locuteur, imposée aux faits, sa qualité de bon argument est très douteuse. En outre, il y a la distinction, que les langues arrivent parfois à marquer, entre cause supposée inconnue et cause supposée connue, que tout le monde est censé connaître - avec une force probatoire considérable. Voir, par exemple, la différence entre les conjonctions françaises analysées par Weinrich 1989, 46lf: -puisque, comme, la cause est connue, le destinataire devrait la connaître; - dans le style administratif, étant donné que, vu que, attendu que „rappellent telle information préalable que nul n'est censé d'ignorer"; - car introduit une cause inconnue; - enfin parce que ne donne aucun renseignement à propos de la connaissance de la cause par le destinataire. Les séquences argumentatives reposent sur des schémas logiques; nous ne croyons pas que le respect formel de la construction logique (l'expression langagière conforme aux préceptes de la logique pure) soit une condition sine qua non pour qu'une séquence puisse être attribuée plutôt au genre „logique pure" qu'au genre „logique naturelle". Exemples de schémas logiques: (1) ,,P étant ce qu'il est, vous devez exclure tout ce qui implique Q; agir autrement serait R (= une infraction) et appellerait S (= une sanction). (Toulmin 1993, 35). (2) la „reductio ad absurdum"; (3) „Ta Thèse P est vraie [Concession], mais elle n'implique pas que notre Thèse soit fausse [Objection]". Certains raisonnements sont basés sur la maxime conversationnelle „no evidence for p" = „evidence against p", comme dans les équations „1 have no reason to believe you - I don't believe you"; „1 have not seen an elephant that can fly - No elephant can fly" (Fauconnier 1980, 65).

6. Système et structure L'unité argumentative minimale est la proposition douée d'un rôle argumentatif; soulignons tout de suite que les unités élémentaires n'existent jamais à l'état d'isolement; la vraie cellule argumentative est un couple formé d'une Thèse et d'un Appui ou d'un Rejet. Les couples peuvent être situés dans de longues séquences, ce qui nous permet de parler de „systèmes" et de „structures" argumentatifs. En appliquant la terminologie structuraliste, on dira qu'un système est décrit en termes de relations syntagmatiques. Est „structure argumentative" toute séquence d'au moins deux propositions douées de rôle argumentatif, et „système argumentatif' l'ensemble des choix dont dispose le locuteur après avoir énoncé une proposition

Le texte argumentatif

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argumentative. Les Preuves qui appartiennent à une même classe argumentative (qui appuient la même Thèse ou Conclusion; (voir Moeschler, J./Reboul A. 1995, 281) constituent avec la Thèse (ou Conclusion) une structure. L'enthymème est un „syllogisme rhétorique" qui part d'une prémisse probable, vraisemblable et produit persuasion et non démonstration (Barthes cité par Cattani 1990, 97), cf.: Toi aussi tu peux te tromper, car tu es un être humain.

Les structures dans les échanges verbaux polémiques sont particulièrement intéressantes; voir, par exemple: A: On ne trompe pas les bons Pères, tandis qu'on trompe les imbéciles./B: Erreur, profonde erreur! (...) On voit bien, mon cher, que vous ne connaissez pas l'électorat. Je le connais, moi. Les imbéciles ne sont pas plus faciles à tromper que les autres. Ils se trompent, c'est vrai (...) Mais on ne les trompe pas (France 1986, 190).

Dans l'étude des systèmes le dialogue offre des exemples plus nombreux et plus éloquents; en effet, si le locuteur A énonce une proposition à fonction x, son partenaire pourra réagir par un nombre fini de fonctions, et il y a des réactions plus probables et des réactions moins probables. Certes, le contenu sémantique, le choix des mots ne sont pas prévisibles. Au contraire, dans un texte monologique la possibilité qu'a le destinataire de prévoir l'occurence d'une fonction y après une fonction x est très réduite. Malgré l'optimisme qui se dégage de nos affirmations, il est raisonnable de se poser la question des limites de la prévisibilié, donc de la redondance des rôles argumentatifs. Ceci constitue un autre point interrogatif de la recherche argumentative.

7. Séquences bien vs mal formées Les séquences de rôles argumentatifs sont „bien formées" ou „mal formées" (le premier terme est employé par Lo Cascio 1991, 66f dans un sens différent du nôtre: „rispondono aile leggi del buono e dell'onesto argomentare"), et ceci dans n'importe quel type de texte. Dans les dialogues on aura „malformation" lorsque le partenaire réagit par un acte qui contredit les règles de succession des rôles. On aura aussi „malformation" lorsque la séquence produite repose sur un vice logique, par exemple un des locuteurs se contredit. Mais est-ce qu'on parlera de „malformation" toutes les fois que les enchaînements souffrent d'un vice logique, par exemple d'une petitio principii ou bien de la présence d'un „quatrième élément"? Il convient d'adopter à cet égard une attitude prudente, car même les raisonnements fallacieux obtiennent souvent le succès: ils persuadent. Ce qui compte en l'argumentation est le succès, et pas la vérité!

Sorin Stati

12 8. Types de texte et mélanges

Il y a argumentation au niveau „local" et „général". Pour ce qui est de la première espèce on pensera, par exemple, à une description, à l'intérieur de laquelle le descripteur prévient une Objection possible du lecteur et justifie sa propre Thèse. Le texte reste descriptif, avec une interruption argumentative, à savoir une cellule [Thèse-Justification]; c'est un îlot argumentatif dans un contexte descriptif. Le paysage était resplendissant, les arbres étaient fleuris mais c'était normal, le printemps était déjà arrivé.

Des îlots argumentatifs sporadiques se présentent aussi au milieu d'un texte narratif. De ceci on devrait distinguer l'emploi argumentatif d'une description ou d'un récit. Nous avons considéré comme types de textes les argumentatifs, les descriptifs et les narratifs, mais ce n'est pas une conception unanime: en effet, pour ne citer qu'un exemple, Rossari (1995) énumère les types énonciatifs suivants: narratif, délibératif, descriptif, et illustre la thèse que „récit et commentaire s'intercalent" assez souvent. Dès l'antiquité on avait d'ailleurs remarqué que la narration peut avoir un caractère argumentatif: „La narrazione ha una funzione preparatoria in quanto contiene già i semi degli argomenti" (Consulti Fortunati 1979, 225). En analysant un texte qui demandait aux destinataires de verser une certaine somme d'argent pour l'organisation appelée „Zero Population Growth" on a pu relever différents effets communicatifs: donner des renseignements sur l'organisation, faire approuver son activité, produire le désir de contribuer avec des donations. La première partie du texte ainsi analysé est une „hortatory exposition the function of which is to persuade the reader to do what the thesis recommends" et la thèse est „Please make a special contribution to Zero Population Growth today!" (Mann, W./Thomson, S. A. 1992). En conséquence, le discours argumentatif se présente de trois manières: - îlot argumentatif inséré dans un texte hétérogène; - texte non argumentatif employé à des fins argumentatives; - texte argumentatif, c'est-à-dire texte où dominent les propositions à rôle argumentatif, texte qui dans sa totalité se propose d'obtenir l'adhésion du destinataire pour une certaine Thèse ou un ensemble de Thèses, éventuellement réparties entre deux voire plusieurs interlocuteurs qui polémiquent. Exemples typiques de textes argumentatifs sont les plaidoyers, les sermons, les discours de propagande politique, les débats. Le décodage d'un discours argumentatif repose sur l'identification par le destinataire de: - opérateurs et connecteurs; il y a des propositions qui se „auto-qualifient" comme argumentatives. Voir, par exemple, les connecteurs dans le texte qui suit: Il connaissait donc les sentiments de Riquet. C'est pourquoi il n'insista pas cette fois. Il n'ignorait pas d'ailleurs que Riquet, après le dîner, avait mangé avidemment sa pâtée dans la cuisine. (France 1986, 10);

Le texte argumentatif

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- lexèmes et autres expressions jouant le rôle de para-arguments, par exemple „Vous vous trompez", „C'est sûr que". Dascal (1995, 104) cite comme „marqueurs d'opposition" pour les échanges verbaux polémiques „vous ne pouvez pas dire que", ,je ne suis pas d'accord", „ce que vous dites contredit"; - règles (précises, probables, fréquentes) de séquences de rôles argumentatifs. Le décodage repose aussi sur des raisonnements de type inférentiel appliqués à des enchaînements sans opérateurs et lexèmes para-argumentatifs. Grâce à de telles inférences, le récepteur applique aux séquences de propositions des schémas argumentatifs et reconnaît, par exemple dans une séquence, en la deuxième proposition une Objection à la première, et en la cinquième, une Preuve en faveur de la quatrième. En l'absence de signaux spécifiques, le destinataire se base sur le mécanisme de l'inférence, comme dans l'exemple suivant: Lie tous les petits liens sans en passer un. Dieu nous donnera le temps. (Anouilh 1959, 147). Les raisonnements inférentiels exploitent en premier lieu le contenu lexico-syntaxique des propositions concernées. Le décodage fait état du „crédit de cohérence" au niveau argumentatif: l'auteur du texte est censé respecter les principes de la cohérence et de la coopération. En conclusion, il est justifié d'attribuer aux locuteurs une hypothétique

compétence

argumentative.

Références Anouilh, J. (1946), Antigone, Paris: La Table Ronde. Anouilh, J. (1969), Cher Antoine, Paris: La Table Ronde. Anouilh, J. (1959), Becket, Paris: La Table Ronde. Camus, A. (1958), Caligula suivi de Le malentendu, Paris: Gallimard. Cattani, A. (1990), Forme dell'argomentare. Il ragionamento tra logica e retorica, Padova: Edizioni GB. Cocteau, J. (1992), Les enfants terribles, Paris: Grasset. Consulti Fortunati (1979), Ars rhetorica, Bologna: Pàtron. Dascal, M. (1995), Observations sur la dynamique des controverses. In: Cahiers de Linguistique Française 17, 99121.

van Eemeren, F./Grootendorst, R. (1991), The Study of Argumentation From a Speech Act Perspective. In: Verschueren, J. (ed.), Pragmatics at Issue, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins, 151-170. Fagin, R. et alii (1995), Reasoning About Knowledge, Cambridge Mass./London: The MIT Press. Fauconnier, G. (1980), Pragmatic Entailment and Questions. In: Searle, J.R./Kiefer, F./Bierwisch, M. (eds.), Speech Acts Theory and Pragmatics: London. France, A. (1986), Monsieur Bergeret à Paris, Paris: Presses Pocket. Kesik, M. (1989), La cataphore, Paris: PUF. Lo Cascio, V. (1991), La grammatica dell'argomentare, Firenze, La Nuova Italia. Mac Cormick, N. (1993), Argumentation and Interpretation in Law. In: Argumentation 9,467-480. Mann, W./Thomson, S. A. (1992), Discourse Description, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins. Moeschier, J./Reboul, A. (1994), Dictionnaire encyclopédique de pragmatique, Paris: Seuil.

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Plantin, C. (1990), Essais sur l'argumentation, Paris. Rossari, C. (1995), Du naiTatif au discursif, du monologique au dialogique. Continuum ou rupture? In: Cahiers de Linguistique Française 16, 193-209. Sbisà, M. (1989), Linguaggio, ragione, intelligenza, Bologna: Il Mulino. Schopenhauer, A. (1991), L'arte di ottenere ragione esposta in 38 stratagemmi, Milano: Adelphi. Stati, S. (1994), Passive Moves in Argumentation. In: Cmejrkovà, S./Sticha, F. (eds.), The Syntax of Sentence and Text, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins, 259-272. Stati, S. (1995a), Sémantique et rhétorique: à propos des rôles argumentatifs. In: Hoinkes, U. (ed.), Panorama der lexikalischen Semantik, Tübingen, Narr, 633-640. Stati, S. (1995b), Some Distinctive Features of Polemic Moves. In: Hindelang, B. et alii (eds ), Der Gebrauch der Sprache. Festschrift fur Franz Hundsnurscher, Münster, LIT 363-369. Toulmin, S. (1993), Les usages de l'argumentation, Paris: PUF [éd. originale anglaise 1958], Weinrich, H. (1989), Grammaire textuelle du français, Paris: Didier/Hatier. Woods, J./Walton, D. (1992), Critique de l'argumentation. Logique des sophismes ordinaires, Paris: Kimé. Yourcenar, M. (1968), L'œuvre au noir, Paris: Gallimard.

Marcelo Dascal

Types of Polemics and Types of Polemical Moves

1. Motivation 2. Methodological remarks 3. Three types of polemical exchanges 4. Three types of moves 5. Concluding remarks Notes References

In the spiritual Warfare, where our Adversary is the old Serpent, Stratagems are as lawful as Expedient. Robert Boyle The man who is seeking to convert another in the proper manner should do so in a dialectical and not in a contentious way ... he who asks questions in a contentious spirit and he who in replying refuses to admit what is apparent... are both of them bad dialecticians. Aristotle Even more precious perhaps is the tradition that works against the ambivalence connected with the argumentation function of language, the tradition that works against that misuse of language which consists in pseudoarguments and propaganda. This is the tradition and discipline of clear speaking and clear thinking; it is the critical tradition - the tradition of reason. Karl Popper

1. Motivation My first objective in this paper is to persuade dialogue analysts of all persuasions of the importance of polemical exchanges, and thereby to prompt them to apply to this kind of „dialogues" their analytical tools and skills. My second objective is to present a number of distinctions I have developed in the course of my research on polemical exchanges, in the hope that they provide a useful framework for further research on this topic. My third objective - in fact, my „hidden agenda" - is to propose new grounds and new objectives upon which a fruitful interdisciplinary dialogue between philosophical and empirical approaches to the study of dialogue can be reinstated.

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1.1 Is it really necessary to persuade anyone that polemical discourse occupies a central place in our public and private discursive lives? Hardly so. Whichever way we look, we are entangled in endless polemicizing: from daily domestic quarrels, through disputes over parking places or office space, to political dissension; from talk-show discussions, through labor conflicts, to policy decisions; from mild disagreement, through bitter bickering, to schism; from critical book reviews, through congress round-tables, to scientific controversies; in matters of literary taste, in courtrooms, in the workplace, in parliaments, and at home. No doubt social and cultural (as well as individual) variation obtains here as elsewhere in communicative practices, and one may distinguish, as suggested by Kerbrat-Orecchioni (1994, 82fF.), between those societies driven by an ethos confrontationnel (the example she gives is Israeli society) and those whose regulative ethos is rather consensuel (like the Japanese society). Nevertheless, even in the latter, the elaborate politeness devices used to prevent explicit polemical confrontations that might harm one's face suggest that they do not overlook the importance of polemics but rather conduct them in a covert rather than overt way. It would seem, then, that in one way or another people everywhere are constantly engaged in either defending themselves, attacking somebody else, or avoiding open confrontation. So much so that it makes sense to argue, with McEvoy (1995), that „defensive invention" is a basic and universal communicative skill. No wonder that several cultural traditions assigned so much importance to developing, imparting and employing this skill: recall the importance of rhetoric in ancient and medieval education, the reliance on disputationes up to the seventeenth century and on their equivalents (oposiciones in Spain, defense de these in France) in order to grant university degrees, the Talmudic detailed record of the sages' discussions in establishing the halakha, the immense popularity of the Chan-kuo Tse in ancient China, even though the stratagems it teaches were considered unethical, etc. And yet, despite the obvious importance of polemical exchanges, dialogue analysts have not so far devoted to them the special attention they deserve. So much so that as recently as 1989 Roulet rightly pointed out that controversy was a „little studied" kind of „agonal exchange". Of course there are welcome exceptions. Prompted largely by Perelman's rehabilitation of rhetoric (cf. Perelman/Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1970), „argumentation" studies have flourished (see, e.g., Lempereur, 1991; and many articles in the journal Argumentation). The philosophy, sociology and history of science have recently turned their attention to scientific controversies (e.g., Engelhardt Jr./Caplan (eds.), 1987; Gil (ed.), 1990; Gil, 1985; Granger, 1985), and it is hoped that the newly created „rhetoric of science" (e.g., McCloskey, 1984, 1995; Gross 1990; Pera 1991) will soon follow suit. But these studies have not, for the most part, been concerned with the dialogical characteristics of polemical exchanges, and consequently have not employed the conceptual tools of dialogue analysis and pragmatics. Noteworthy exceptions are attempts to chart the dialogical field to which controversy belongs (e.g., Jacques 1991), and the use of speech act theory (e.g., van Eemeren/Grootendorst, 1984), pragmatics (e.g., Dascal 1989, 1990a), rhetoric (Pera 1991), and related conceptual tools in the study of controversies. By and

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large, however, the theme of polemical exchanges is still awaiting for a concerted research effort by the dialogue research community. 1.2 Polemical exchanges are especially important in epistemology - to wit the centrality of dialectics in Western thought, from Plato and Aristotle, through Kant and Hegel, to Popper and Kuhn. For these and many other thinkers, knowledge is achieved through the exercise of critical reason. No doubt many philosophers and scientists prefer to exercise criticism in the inner fore of their thoughts, or in monological discussions of others' texts, or else in fictive dialogues they write so as to be in full control of the opponents' replies. These preferences notwithstanding, criticism is primarily a form of dialogical activity, which manifests itself most naturally in polemical exchanges of various sorts. Furthermore, such a critical activity constitutes the most immediately relevant context both for understanding the meaning of a theory and for accounting for conceptual change in any domain. With their professional bias towards abstraction, philosophers and historians of ideas have not showed particular interest for the empirical study of critical activity as it deploys itself in dialogical praxis. It is up to pragmatics, conversational and dialogue analysis, rhetoric, and related disciplines concerned with the study of language use, to take up this challenge, and to help epistemologists to flesh out their abstract models of criticism with fresh and insightful empirical evidence. Belonging as I do to these two communities, it is only too natural that, lest I relished in a split self, I should try to harmonize them, by somehow making the toils of each of them useful for the other. In fact, there is also a bit of nostalgy in this endeavor. Once upon a time philosophy and rhetoric, logic and dialectics, and pragmatics and the philosophy of language were happily married. Wittgenstein, Grice, and Austin, each in his own way, raised the problems that opened a theoretical space for pragmatics, and provided some of this discipline's foundational concepts, by way of pursuing typical philosophical inquiries (cf. Dascal, 1994). But there is more to it than sheer saudades of the happy time of the pioneers, which may not have been, after all, so harmonious. Current debates about the „foundations" of speech act theory (e.g., Tsohatzidis (ed ), 1994 and its critique by Weigand, 1996) and of pragmatics in general (e.g., the special issue (in volume 17, 1992) of the Journal of Pragmatics devoted to this topic), about how to develop an action-based dynamic and dialogical grounding of the study of language use (e.g., Vernant 1996), about the universality or culture-specific character of communicative competence and practice (e.g., Wierzbicka, 1993; Blum-Kulka, 1992), about the „correct" number of the conversational maxims (e.g., Rolf, 1989) and the (in)sufficiency of the principle of cooperation (e.g., Attardo, 1997) - all this shows that the field of research created by the pioneers is far from having secured sound philosophical foundations. Progress towards this aim requires further dialogue between dialogue researchers and philosophers. But philosophy too - in particular epistemology - has much to gain from such a dialogue. It is no big news that, for quite a while, the „modern" notion of rationality has come under heavy „post-modern" fire (cf. Cohen/Dascal (eds.), 1989). Nor is it big news that the split between

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normativist and descriptivist approaches within epistemology in general and the philosophy of science in particular - a split that, among other things, touches upon the question whether one can speak of the „growth of knowledge" in terms of rational criteria or not - rather than subsiding has been increasing, leading the field to a true impasse (cf. Dascal, 1995c). And it is also well-known that philosophers, who for some time have discussed the issue of „cultural relativism" as if it did not affect the very nature of philosophy itself, are now aware that this is not the case (cf. Dascal (ed), 1991). What is at stake, in all these crucial issues of present-day philosophy, is the very issue of the possibility of communication - between radically opposed „paradigms", between deeply different „conceptual schemes", between apparently irreconcilable conceptions of rationality and of its role in our knowing, acting, and communicating. Under these circumstances, it is no longer possible to base one's theory of communication - as both Grice and Searle did, and as action-based theories of dialogue do - upon an unexamined principle of (instrumental) rationality and upon the presumption that successful communication and understanding are the rule and misunderstanding and miscommunication the exception. Nor is it possible anymore to sit back and wait until philosophy disentangles itself by its own means, so as to finally - once more - clear the conceptual ground for empirical research to proceed. The „hidden agenda" I suggest consists in emphasizing the importance of the opposite direction. I am convinced that, by studying empirically those cases - such as polemical exchanges - where communication seems to be at odds with the old comfortable notions of cooperation and rationality, and yet still to be possible, we may contribute to the solution of the philosophical impasses alluded to above. We may find out, for example, that controversies display a special kind of „rationality" and „normativity" which cannot be reduced neither to the strictures of idealized logic nor to the sheer exercise of power in what amounts to no more than conflicts of interests (cf. Dascal, 1996). Whatever we find out, it is sure to be exciting and important: exciting because the dialogue with empiria, in order to be worth its while, must be open to surprises, to imprevisibility, just like the dispute with a real opponent always is; important because it will be relevant to some of the major intellectual (and practical) issues of our time, as well as to the conceptual foundations of the empirical study of dialogue.

2. Methodological remarks I have been arguing for an empirical study of polemical exchanges as a means to solve certain acute philosophical problems - in particular, as a way to address the problem of „rationality" by examining critical activity as it is displayed in polemical exchanges. But - the reader might justly complain - my argumentation here, and perhaps my methodology in general, is all but „empirical". In fact, it seems to be a classical example of a „top-down" strategy: I begin with providing a „philosophical" motivation for studying a certain kind of phenomena; I go on by anticipating the kinds of conclusions I expect from such a study; and, as will be clear in what follows, I propose a typology for the phenomena to be studied consisting in quite abstract „ideal

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types". I even dismiss in advance possible counter-examples to this typology (e.g., cases that do not fit any of the ideal types proposed) by claiming that „real cases" are always „impure", for they involve a mixture of the three ideal types - a claim typical of all those who favor theoretical elegance over a close fit to the data.1 So, I have to explain my apparently self-contradictory methodological stance. The explanation is that it is neither strictly top-down nor strictly bottom-up. In fact, when I began to study actual controversies, my main methodological assumption was that the conceptual tools of pragmatics could be applied to them - a rather harmless top-down assumption (see Dascal, 1989, 1990a). I was surprised to discover a correlation between the contenders' preferred use of certain argumentative patterns and their epistemological conceptions about the nature of knowledge and of its production. It was only in the light of further studies of actual controversies that the typology presented below gradually emerged, and its correlation with epistemological issues was further explored.2 At present, I view my proposal as a general hypothesis, which I want to be put to test by further empirical studies of a broad range of polemical exchanges. This sounds like a perfectly run-of-the-mill application of the „hypothetico-deductive method". I mention it because it highlights the fact that we never begin either at the „top" or at the „bottom", but rather somewhere in the middle, for the simple reason that we don't know what is the top and what is the bottom - both being relative to the current state of research. Progress is made by moving both „upwards" and „downwards", by treating „analysis" and „synthesis" (in Leibniz's sense) as always going hand in hand, and thereby by actually treating knowledge as both „bottomless" and „topless". This is, anyhow, my methodological stance. A further methodological clarification is in order. There are many „levels of organization of dialogue", many ways of distinguishing between these levels, and many ways of analyzing their structure.3 Polemical exchanges should be studied at all of these levels, of course. Here, I will focus on two „macro" levels of organization, which might be called, respectively, „strategical" and „tactical". The former, which is akin to what Jacques (1991) calls „discursive strategies", has to do with the global pattern of a polemical exchange - its overall aims, its general thematic and hierarchical structure, and the corresponding assumptions about its „rules" (if any) and its mode of resolution. The latter has to do with the nature of the moves and countermoves employed at specific points in the exchange, in the light of the varying contingencies or „demands" (cf. Dascal, 1977) of the polemics as it unfolds; this „tactical" level is part and parcel of a polemical dialogue's „pragmatic structure" (cf. Dascal, 1992) or sequential organization. In both, its strategical and its tactical level, polemical exchanges share much with other forms of dialogue, but I will naturally focus on their peculiarities, which I will present in terms of two sets of ideal types. The study of these „macro" levels does not preclude the need for a detailed analysis of their „micro" components. Quite on the contrary, it should be complemented and supported by such an analysis. Once more, I am here beginning in the „middle" (with a slight tendency towards the „top"), relying on others to continue upwards and downwards.

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3. Three types of polemical exchanges A polemical exchange involves at least two persons who employ language to address each other, in a confrontation of attitudes, opinions, arguments, theories, and so forth. The important expressions in this definition are address each other and confrontation. The former stresses the interactive aspect („exchange", „dialogue") and the latter, the content of the interaction, as perceived by the participants. Both expressions require clarification, which is best achieved by pointing out how they determine the extension of the field of „polemical exchanges". 3.1 The address-each-other requirement excludes from this field all sorts of polemical discourse in which one of the „participants" is unable to actually participate, i.e. all those polemics where there is no real dialogue. For example, the „critical reception" of a (deceased) author's work e.g., Popper's diatribes against Marx, Hegel, and Plato, in his The Open Society and its Enemies. Similarly, it excludes the literary and philosophical genre „dialogue", where one of the parties is not the actual producer of his interventions - e.g., Plato's, Leibniz's, Hume's „dialogues". Although such works may echo polemical exchanges that really took place (and may thus help to reconstruct them), they cannot be taken as reliable records of such exchanges. The reason for excluding these cases has to do with my insistence on viewing polemics as an activity, and more importantly - an activity that always involves an element of uncertainty regarding the opponent's reactions. The amount of uncertainty varies with the type of polemical exchange (ritualized forms, such as the obligatio, allow for little inventiveness). Nevertheless, a live, real, and active (i.e., neither dead, nor imaginary, nor silent) opponent is unpredictable in his/her reactions. Although we may anticipate to some extent our opponent's reactions, and even undertake to manoeuver her to react in a certain way, polemics is essentially a game where our capacity for predicting the adversary's move is limited. For this to be possible, each contender must be able to exercise the right to contest not only the opponent's views but also the latter's renderings (quotes, summaries, interpretations) of his [the former's] positions. Since this right can be put to use either privately or publicly, either orally or in written form, either directly or indirectly (e.g., through intermediaries), all of these forms of confrontational interaction should be considered „polemical exchanges". The second requirement amounts to the acknowledgment of the fact that every polemical exchange involves „opposed views" regarding some „content". Both of these notions should be conceived broadly, for both the nature of the content and of the opposition leading to a polemical exchange may vary considerably. The latter may range from logical contradiction or weaker forms of logical contrariness, through differences in semantic or pragmatic presuppositions, up to pragmatically construed contrasts (such as those implicit in most uses of but (cf. Dascal/Katriel, 1977), etc. The opposed „contents", in turn, refer not only to specific propositional contents on a variety of matters (factual, methodological, evaluative, etc.), but also to illocutionary force, attitudes, preferences, emphasis, judgments of appropriateness and relevance, etc. All these may give rise to polemical exchanges, regardless of whether they are

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„truly" opposed. What matters is that the contenders perceive them as being opposed and consequently engage in a debate having such contents as its explicit or implicit object. As an object of study, polemical exchange thus consists primarily in those texts or utterances directly addressed by each disputant to the other (or others), privately or publicly. In addition to this „primary text", there is in general a vast „secondary text" which, at least partially, belongs to the exchange. It includes, for instance, works or other exchanges by the disputants where the polemics is reflected directly or indirectly, as well as letters to third parties where allusion is made to it. A broader circle of texts that are pertinent form its „co-text" which includes, for example, works or exchanges by prior or contemporary authors quoted and relied upon by both disputants. Finally, every polemics unfolds within a nondiscursive „context", whose various aspects and levels have always a more or less important role in their content and development.4 3 .2 The family of polemical exchanges thus described includes, among its many members, verbal quarrels between couples, political debates, round tables in scientific congresses, critical reviews of books and replies to them, medieval disputationes, etc. Within this family, I propose to characterize three ideal types, which I will call - for the sake of having a handy terminology discussion, dispute, and controversy. The main criteria for this typology are. the scope of the disagreement, the kind of content involved in it, the presumed means for solving the disagreement, and the ends pursued by the contenders. These differences belong to the „strategical" macro level in so far as they refer primarily to the overall structure of the exchange, the assumption being that such a structure reflects (at least to some extent) the contenders' planning and performing its „larger ... movements and operations".5 Although each of these types allows for the occasional use of the three types of „tactical" moves to be described in the next section, each has an inherent affinity with one of the types of moves. • A DISCUSSION is a polemical exchange whose object is a well-circumscribed topic or problem. As the discussion develops, the contenders tend to acknowledge that the root of the problem is a mistake relating to some important concept or procedure within a well-defined field (even though they disagree regarding the nature of the mistake in question and about who commits it). Discussions allow for solutions, which consist in correcting the mistake thanks to the application of procedures accepted in the field (e.g., proof, computation, repetition of experiments, etc.). • A DISPUTE is a polemical exchange which also seems to have as its object a well-defined divergence. But at no point do the contenders accept its definition as grounded in some mistake. Rather, it is rooted in differences of attitude, feelings, or preferences. There are no mutually accepted procedures for deciding the dispute, that is, a dispute has no solution-, at most it can dissolve or be dissolved6 Since „dissolution" is a form of closure that, ultimately, remains „external" both to the topic under dispute and to the participants' beliefs and attitudes, the underlying divergences tend to recur either in disputes over other versions of the same topic or in disputes over other topics. Some contenders see in the position held by their opponents and in

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their „stubborn imperviousness to rational argument" symptoms of an illness against which the only reasonable action to take is punishment or therapy, or disregard.1 • A CONTROVERSY is a polemical exchange that occupies an intermediate position between discussion and dispute. It can begin with a specific problem, but it spreads quickly to other problems and reveals profound divergences. These involve both opposed attitudes and preferences and disagreements about the extant methods for problem solving. For this reason, the oppositions in question are not perceived simply as a matter of mistakes to be corrected, nor are there accepted procedures for deciding them - which causes the continuation of controversies and sometimes their recurrence. However, they do not reduce to mere unsolvable conflicts of preferences. The contenders pile up arguments they believe increase the weight of their positions vis a vis the adversaries' objections, thereby leading, if not to deciding the matter in question, at least to tilting the „balance of reason" in their favor. Controversies are neither solved nor dissolved; they are, at best, resolved. Their resolution may consist in the acknowledgment (by the contenders or by their community of reference) that enough weight has been accumulated in favor of one of the conflicting positions, or in the emergence (thanks to the controversy) of modified positions acceptable to the contenders, or simply in the mutual clarification of the nature of the differences at stake. Viewed from point of view of their ends, discussions are basically concerned with the establishment of the truth, disputes with -winning, and controversies with persuading the adversary and/or a competent audience to accept one's position. In discussions, the opposition between the theses in conflict is mostly perceived as purely logical, in disputes as mostly „ideological" (i.e., attitudinal and evaluative), and in controversies as involving a broad range of divergences regarding the interpretation and relevance of facts, evaluations, attitudes, goals, and methods. Viewed procedurally, we might say that discussions follow a „problem-solving" model, disputes a „contest" model, and controversies a „deliberative" model. A discussant seeks to apply decision-procedures that provide knock-down arguments proving the truth of her position or the falsity of her adversary's position (which amounts to proving the truth of her position, on the presumption that tertium non datur)\ a disputant seeks to be acknowledged as the winner, regardless of whether his position is true or not; and a controversialist seeks to provide reasons for believing in the superiority of her position, even though such reasons do not conclusively prove it. Whereas a discussant is prepared to admit defeat if the adversary provides a knockdown argument against her position and a controversialist is prepared to acknowledge the weight of the opponent's reasons, a disputant begins and ends the dispute (whatever its „external" outcome) convinced he is right. 3 .3 As mentioned above, actual polemical exchanges are rarely „pure" examples of one of these three types. One of the reasons for that is that the contenders' ways of perceiving and conducting a given exchange need not be identical. For example, in the controversy about Newton's account of whiteness as a mixture of the other colors,8 Newton's attitude was to consider it as a

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discussion, by asking his opponents to perform cautiously and without mistakes the experiment upon which he had based his account, as a way of solving the problem and finding the truth: „For this is to be decided not by discourse, but by new tryal of the Experiment" (Cohen, 1978, 153); „But this, I conceive, is enough to enforce it, and so to decide the controversy" (ibid., p. 131); „There are yet other Circumstances [i.e., other experiments, M.D.], by which the Truth might have been decided" (ibid., p. 130). However, his opponents - especially Hooke and Huyghens refuse to see in Newton's experiment an experimentum cruris, and consider the debate more as a controversy, for they reject the assumptions underlying Newton's hypothesis, and propose alternative hypotheses of their own, grounded on a different theoretical framework and supported by other experiments, as capable to explain Newton's experimental results. Here is what Hooke says: „But, how certain soever I think myself of my hypothesis (which I did not take up without first trying some hundreds of experiments) yet I should be very glad to meet with one experimentum cruris from Mr. Newton, that should divorce me from it. But it is not that, which he so calls, will do the turn; for the same phaenomenon will be solved by my hypothesis, as well as by his, without any manner of difficulty or straining: nay, I will undertake to shew another hypothesis, differing from both his and mine, that shall do the same thing" (Cohen, 1978, 111). Another example is the different attitudes of Searle and Derrida in their well-known debate. In this case, the contenders' attitudes seem to evolve in the course of the debate. As pointed out by Potte-Bonneville (1991, 231), at first both seem to be engaged in a controversy about the best way to interpret and pursue the philosophical project of Austin. From the outset it is clear that this topic should engender a controversy rather than a discussion, since the contenders are well aware that they belong to radically different philosophical paradigms, which question each other's most basic assumptions and methods. Searle, however, opts to treat the debate as a discussion, by attempting to show that Derrida's reading of Austin is simply mistaken, and therefore refutable. He assumes thereby that the interpretation of a (philosophical) text is a decidable matter, and that his own decision-procedure is the one that must be applied in order to settle the issue. Derrida's response, in turn, consists in questioning the assumptions underlying Searle's decision-procedure, which - according to him -need to be set aside in order to allow for a deeper understanding of Austin. At this point Derrida, although ostensively relying upon the „obvious" controversial character of the opposition at stake, may be simply trying to impose upon his opponent the „rules" of his own (Derrida's) „language game". In other words, he too may be treating the debate, at this stage, as a discussion. When, finally, both contenders' attempts to transform the debate into a discussion abiding by each one's rules fail, both seem to shift to its perception as rather a hopeless dispute. Just as participants in polemical exchanges often tend to perceive them as either discussions or disputes, so too this dichotomy seems to exercise a powerful attraction upon theoreticians, leaving no room for the middle term - controversy - in their accounts. Thus, in Kuhn's (1962) well-known schema, in periods of „normal science" disagreements between scientists are intraparadigmatic, i.e., they arise against a background of shared decision procedures that regulate their „problem solving" activity - i.e., such disagreements instantiate our „discussion" category;

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the inter-paradigmatic conflicts, characteristic of periods of „extraordinary science", on the other hand, are often depicted as typical „disputes", in so far as their conduct and resolution depends, ultimately, upon preferences, public relations, interests, and power, rather than upon rational persuasion. At the other extreme (as far as positions in the philosophy of science are concerned), a similar dichotomic tendency to exclude the possibility of controversies can be found in Popper's (1991) attempt to sort out, in the polemics conducted by scientists involved in „scientific revolutions", between an „ideological" and a properly „scientific" component: the former clearly belongs to the category of „dispute", while the latter instantiates „discussion". Needless to say that, for Popper only the latter is of any value in an account of the „growth of knowledge". I am persuaded that the neglect of the category ,-,controversy" as a third alternative, between the strict rule-based notion of rationality that characterizes „discussion" and the conception of „dispute" as governed by extra-rational factors, has been a major setback for the history of ideas and for epistemology, depriving these (and other) disciplines from the possibility of identifying and developing an alternative model of rationality. This is why I recommend this category for special attention and careful empirical study.9

4.

Three types of moves

Turning now to the „tactical" level, I will distinguish between three ideal types of moves employed in polemical exchanges. If „tactics" is related to „strategy" as means to ends, the question of the (independence of the former vis-a-vis the latter arises: Can any of the types of tactical moves be freely used in each of the three ideal types of polemical exchanges? Philosophy - especially, but not only, ethics - has devoted much effort to the analysis of the means-ends relationship. Personally, I am not in favor of either strict dependence or strict independence, but rather of „relative (independence", which might be described in terms of the existence of a „natural affinity" between certain types of means and certain types of ends. This is the kind of conceptual relation I think obtains between the types of moves and of polemical exchanges discussed in this paper. Whether or not this is empirically the case is a task left for further empirical research. 4.1 Like the typology presented in the preceding section, the present one does not purport to be neither exhaustive nor exclusive. Moves can been classified, for example, according to their „functional" roles, e.g., as „initiative" and „reactive" interventions, and, within such broad classes, as „elaborations", „repairs", „digressions", „replicas", „counter-replicas", etc.10 Or, in the medieval theory of disputations, a respondent's permissible moves are classified in terms of their semantic relationship with the opponent's claims as „conceding", „denying", or „distinguishing". I do not dispute the usefulness of such levels of analysis. The typology here proposed, however, addresses another level of conceptualization, which captures properties of moves that apply across their „functional" and „semantic" roles. The main criteria employed in the present typology

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have to do with the immediate goal of the move, the nature of the means it employs to achieve its goal, the kind of „mechanism" it relies upon, the „force" with which it is supposed to achieve its goal, and its relationship with the „current state" of the (polemical) exchange. • A PROOF is a move that purports to establish the truth of a proposition beyond reasonable doubt. For this purpose, it employs some inference rule that explicitly and recognizably leads from other propositions (i.e., the evidence - which includes Toulmin's (1962) „data" and „warrants") to the proposition to be proved. Both the validity of the inference rule and the truth of the evidence are assumed to be established, and therefore to be accepted by the addressee. The addressee is compelled (in so far as he behaves rationally) to accept also the conclusion. The possibility of proving a proposition is taken to show that it has successfully withstood a decisive test that guarantees its truth (or its high degree of probability). • A STRATAGEM is a move that purports to cause a relevant audience to (re)act in a certain way, by inducing it to believe that a proposition is true. It may make use of inference, but need not do so. If it does, neither the inference pattern is assumed to be valid nor the evidence true, but only „effective" vis-a-vis the intended addressee and audience. It may involve deception and dissimulation - e.g., by manipulating the „current state" and „current demands" of the exchange. The causation involved need not be explicit and recognizable by the audience, provided it achieves its intended effect, namely to let its user „win the day" (at least momentarily) in the eyes of the relevant audience (which may or may not include the interlocutor). Hence the current meaning of this word as „any artifice or trick; a device or scheme for obtaining an advantage" (OED). The particular kind of „force" of this move lies not in compelling the addressee to hold the intended belief or to perform the desired action, but rather in rendering him „speechless", i.e., unable to react with a satisfactory counter-move. • An ARGUMENT is a move that purports to persuade the addressee to believe that a proposition is true. Like stratagems and unlike proofs, arguments are not directly concerned with truth, but with belief. Unlike stratagems, arguments seek to achieve their effect by providing recognizable reasons for inducing in the addressee the desired belief. Unlike proofs, however, these reasons need not be based on valid inference patterns and truthful evidence, which are presumed to be accepted by the addressee; they must take into account which propositions the addressee actually accepts (or is likely to accept) as evidence, and which inference patterns are likely to persuade her. Arguments, although not compelling the addressee to accept their conclusion, put her under some sort of obligation to do so - an obligation that presumably stems from social norms, e.g., those of communicative cooperation. 4.2 Obviously, clarification and exemplification of the above descriptions are needed, especially in the light of possible terminological confusion and of the difficulties in identifying „pure" examples of these types of moves in actual polemical exchanges.

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4.2.1 The term proof, as employed here, does not refer only to formal deductive demonstrations, as in logic and (parts of) mathematics. It applies also to the use of other forms of inference (e.g., inductive, non-monotonic, presumptive) that are supposed to establish the truth (or the high degree of probability) of a statement. Nor does a proof - in the present sense - necessarily rely on evidence that has been itself proved: the appeal to experiment, observation, testimony, common sense, etc., whenever these are presented as directly relevant to establishing the truth of a statement, counts as a move pertaining to the category „proof'. What is important in this kind of move is the ostensive reliance upon a procedural process of justification whose „objectivity" resides in its being procedural, i.e., „neutral" vis-a-vis the beliefs and interests of the contenders. This is why proof is deemed able to bypass such beliefs and address truth, so to speak, „directly". Furthermore, it acquires additional polemical weight thanks to the presumption that truth must be the decisive factor in determining belief. The most efficient countermoves to proofs are „counterproofs" that question either the reliability of the evidence presented (e.g., by pointing out inconsistencies in a testimony) or of the inferential procedure employed (e.g., the method of counter-examples in logic). The use of both kinds of moves in polemical exchanges is widespread. Nevertheless, they are only decisive - as their users expect them to be - in the context of „discussions", where a decision procedure which is assumed not to be questionable gives them the necessary „backing" (to use another of Toulmin's concepts). Hence the special affinity between proofs and discussions. 4.2.2 I have borrowed the term stratagem (Ger. Kunstgrijf) from Schopenhauer (1942),11 who has a thoroughly negative view of this kind of move. He compares stratagems to feints in fencing, and describes them as the dishonest „tricks, dodges, and chicanery" to which contenders resort with the sole purpose of „being right", regardless of whether their thesis is true or false. When arguing with an opponent that makes use of such tricks, he says, one „no longer has to deal with his intellect, but with the radical part of the man, his will, to which the only thing that matters is that he ultimately triumphs either per fas or per nefas [by hook or by crook]" (1974, 25). In providing a formal anatomy of these moves, which should serve as the backbone of „the science of [eristic] Dialectic", and in exemplifying 38 stratagems - many of which are described in Aristotle's Topica (especially in Book VIII) - along with appropriate „counter-stratagems", Schopenhauer's aim is to grant the (honest) debater a tool for easily recognizing and defeating such tricks (1942, 10-11). Among his 38 stratagems, we find, along with well-known fallacies, moves that are supposed to have, say, a direct and explicit causal effect upon the opponent's beliefs, such as: Extension. „This consists in carrying your opponent's proposition beyond its natural limits; in giving it as general a signification ... as possible, so as to exaggerate it; and, on the other hand, in giving your own proposition as restricted a sense ... as you can, because the more general a statement becomes, the more numerous are the objections to which it is open." (Schopenhauer, 1942, 13);

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Diversion. „If you find that you are being worsted ... you can suddenly begin to talk of something else, as though it had a bearing on the matter in dispute, and afforded an argument against your opponent" (Schopenhauer, 1942, 29-30);12 as well as moves that are intended to provoke certain reactions, which will then make the opponent's position (and beliefs) vulnerable, e.g.: [Irritation], „Contradiction and contention irritate a man into exaggerating his statement. By contradicting your opponent you may drive him into extending beyond its proper limits a statement which, at all events within those limits and in itself, is true" (Schopenhauer, 1942, 26). To the latter kind, we might add Aristotle's [Confidence building].

„You should also, yourself sometimes, bring an objection against

yourself; for answerers are unsuspicious when dealing with those who appear to them to be arguing fairly" (Aristotle, 1976, 156b 17), as well as Leibniz's [Compensation], „11 est quelquefois utile que nous souffrions qu'on nous fasse quelque tort dans une matière de peu de consequence, car si quelque grand y a trempé, cela luy donnera quelque penchant (s'il est d'un bon naturel) à nous faire du bien dans quelque autre rencontre, et on peut menager la chose en sorte, que la seconde soit plus importante à nous, que la première" [GRUA, 701-702]

13

Stratagems of the latter type are mainly „offensive" moves, „traps" of sorts, quite similar to those described in game theory as „strategic moves", namely „moves that induce the other player to choose in one's favor" (Schelling 1960, 22). But they can also be used, like those of the former type, defensively. Both of these, as well as other types of stratagems abound in polemical exchanges (see Dascal and Cremaschi, forthcoming, for a sample). Empirical research should find out whether they are more frequent in the exchanges belonging to the category „dispute", with which they seem to have a natural affinity, in so far as they share the goal of winning per fas or

per nefas. 4.2.3 The term argument, finally, is here employed in the sense it has in Perelman's nouvelle rhétorique, namely as a kind of move intended to modify beliefs by means of reasons which are neither logically compelling nor impersonal.14 Arguments, in this sense, differ from proofs in that they may be logically invalid (e.g., the slippery slope, the ad verecundiam) or else may consist in showing the insufficiency of logical validity (e.g., the petitio principii).

A „slippery slope"

argument consists in pointing out that A would lead to B, and then to C, D, ... N, through a

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causal chain, and to claim that one should prevent A, because N is an undesirable consequence. In politics, this argument is known as the „domino effect". Logically it is invalid, because the causal chain can be interrupted anywhere, not just at its initial point, as the argument presupposes. The Vietnam war is a counter-example to this argument. Nevertheless, it is a rationally persuasive argument, which is regularly used in deliberations, and whose persuasive weight depends upon the addressee's estimate of the cost of interrupting the causal chain at different points. A petitio principii charge, on the other hand, does not question the logical validity of the opponent's move (what could be more valid than ,/>, therefore /?"). It simply points out the uselessness of such a move in order to establish the truth of a proposition.15 A petitio charge is, in a sense, an example of an ad hominem argument, belonging to the subset of tu quoque arguments. Though generally (though by no means universally) considered fallacious on the grounds that the (circumstances of the) person making a claim are not relevant to the truth of that claim, ad hominem arguments can be (rationally) persuasive: if you wouldn't trust a man to buy a car from him, it is reasonable for you to see in this a reason not to vote for him for president, if you think honesty is a quality a president should have. The affinity between the „argument" type of move and the „controversy" type of polemical exchange lies in the fact that the former fits the latter's most typical features. First, the controversy's openness, namely, the fact that in a controversy everything is up for grabs, no „sacred" assumptions or methods being preserved from unlimited mutual questioning. Arguments are both good tools for that purpose (since they go beyond purely logical considerations, and thus allow to question what the former take for granted) and also excellent targets (in so far as, when used by the adversary to ground her position, their „quasi-validity" makes them easy prey to orthodox logical hunting practices). Second, the fact that, even though in a controversy all is up for grabs, not „anything goes", i.e., some norms are respected and the ways of acting upon the opponent's beliefs are constrained. 4.3 The identification of a move performed in a polemical exchange as belonging to a given ideal type is no easy matter, especially due to co-text dependency. One might think that a proof is a proof, an argument an argument, and a stratagem a stratagem regardless of the „polemical demand" to which they respond and of their influence upon the ensuing interventions. But this is not the case. In the case of moves, as in the case of the interpretation of other linguistic elements, we may have to distinguish between, say, the „literal" and the „actual". Just as an utterance which has the syntactic form of a question and, thus, whose sentence-meaning is that of a question, may serve to perform other speech acts, so too a move that is „literally" a proof may be actually used as a diversion stratagem or as a non-compelling argument.16 Consequently, the empirical study of these moves requires both a syntactic-semantic and a pragmatic component. The problem of identification is compounded by the fact that, whereas proofs and arguments „advertise" themselves as such by the use of explicit linguistic markers, stratagems rather „disguise" themselves as proofs or arguments.

Types of Polemics and Types of Polemical Moves

29

5. Concluding remarks I have presented my two trichotomies on the assumption that it is possible to distinguish clearly between their respective levels of analysis. I do believe that such a distinction is necessary and fruitful, although certainly not easy to pinpoint. Aristotle, for one, was aware of the need to make the distinction and proposed trichotomies quite similar to those developed here. On the one hand, he distinguished three types of polemical exchanges,17 „demonstrative", „dialectical", and „contentious" (Aristotle, 1976, 100a 25-101a 5). On the other, he coined special terms for characterizing the moves typical of each of these exchanges, namely „philosopheme", „epichireme" and „sophism", respectively (ibid., 162a 15). But he did not make clear the relationship between the two levels. For he apparently didn't take into account the fact that none of the types of exchanges neither consists nor can consist exclusively of the types of moves to which they bear the closest „affinity" No wonder that many of the moves that he lists under „dialectical" exchanges turn out to be stratagems. Unfortunately, I cannot pretend to have been more successful than Aristotle, in this respect, and instead of attempting to solve this problem here, I will add a further source of difficulty for its solution. We have already noticed that contenders often tend to conduct and interpret the polemical exchanges in which they are involved as belonging to one of the ideal types (usually limiting their choice to two of them, discussions and disputes). Such interpretations - as many other metadiscursive claims and attitudes - may reflect „tactical" choices of a „macro" arena: a contender may choose, say, the „discussion" arena in order to take (local or global) advantage of his mastery of this special kind of battle and weaponry. On the other hand, „micro" can also become „macro", and „tactics" can become „strategy". For example, a repeatedly used stratagem may become definitory of a contender's goal in an exchange, thereby acquiring strategic import. Thus, the counterpart of the „extension" stratagem, namely, restricting the scope of one's claim so as to make it invulnerable to a given objection, may become what I have called the „insulation strategy" (cf. Dascal 1990b), when used, e.g., to protect one's claims to knowledge from every possible sceptical objection. This last example permits me to conclude by alluding once more to my hidden agenda. One of the strongest manifestations of scepticism against the existence of controversies as here defined, is Schopenhauer's. For him there cannot really be a „good" dialectic, for as soon as the best intentioned person engages in a debate, his will takes over his intellect, and all he cares for is to win at any cost. But even Schopenhauer acknowledges that this „natural baseness of human nature", this „innate vanity ... which will not suffer us to allow that our first position was wrong and our adversary's right" (Schopenhauer, 1942, 4), has a positive contribution vis-a-vis the discovery and preservation of truth: „Should we abandon our position at once, we may discover later on that we were right after all" (ibid., p. 5). He also admits that we cannot, in studying debates, assume that we are able to „separate actual from apparent truth, since even the disputants are not certain about it beforehand" (ibid., p. 13). Together, these two remarks suggest that, in spite of his stern scepticism, he acknowledges that there are polemics which can

Marcelo Dascal

30 contribute to the

„growth

of

knowledge",

at least

as their unintended

effect.

Contra

Schopenhauer, and along with Aristotle and Perelman, I believe this is not an unintended effect, but the result o f the special kind o f rationality inherent to „controversy", which makes it different from both „discussion" and „dispute". Unlike them, however, I think controversy and its typical move, argument, have not been sufficiently studied as an empirical dialogical phenomenon, s o as to reveal the precise nature o f

the rationality embedded in their use. Without such empirical

support, the debate between optimists like Perelman and pessimists like Schopenhauer will remain a mere dispute; with empirical support, it stands a chance o f becoming a rewarding controversy.

Notes 1. The opposition between these two kinds of methodological preferences often underlies historically important controversies (see Cremaschi/Dascal, 1996, 1998; Dascal/Cremaschi, forthcoming; Gil, 1985). In dialogue studies, this opposition is most evident in the ongoing dispute between ethnomethodologists and speech act theorists (see, for instance, Schegloffs article and Searle's rejoinder in Searle et al., 1992). 2. Mainly in interaction with the members of the research group „Leibniz the Polemicist", in a very fruitful year (1994/5) at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Sergio Cremaschi, Gideon Freudenthal, Fernando Gil, Alan Gross, Massimo Mugnai, Carl Posy, Quintin Racionero, Elhanan Yakira, and all those who attended our seminars have contributed graciously to both the insights and mistakes you may find in what follows. For some initial results of our work, see Dascal, 1995b, 1995c; Cremaschi/Dascal, 1996, 1998; Dascal/Cremaschi, forthcoming; Dascal/Gross, forthcoming. 3 A conference on this topic was held in Geneva in 1995. For how some of these levels bear on the topic of controversies, see Dascal, 1995b. For other relevant material, see Fritz, 1994, 1995; Jacques, 1991; Mann/ Thompson, 1988; Dascal, 1992; Roulet, 1995. 4. For the types and uses of co-text and context, see Dascal/Weizman, 1987. For descriptions of such types and uses in controversies, see Dascal, 1990a; Cremaschi/Dascal, 1998; Dascal/Cremaschi, forthcoming. 5. „Strategy - The art of the commander-in-chief; the art of projecting and directing the larger military movements and operations of a campaign. Generally distinguished from tactics, which is the art of handling forces in battle on in the immediate presence of the enemy" (Oxford English Dictionary). „Strategie: umfassende [vorbereitende] Plannung eines Krieges unter Einbeziehung aller wesentlichen Faktoren" (Der Grosse Duden, Bd. 10). „Stratégie: partie de l'art militaire qui traite de la direction d'ensemble ... dans la conduite de la guerre" (Nouveau Petit Larousse). 6. A dispute can be referred to some instituted authority, such as a tribunal, which may decide in favor of one of the parties. But in these cases, the conflict of opinions or attitudes is not resolved but merely subdued, since, as pointed out by Leibniz, no one has the power to force the other to forget or to attend - both indispensable conditions for having the power to make the other change her opinion (VOR, p. 19). 7. „It is not necessary to examine every problem and every thesis but only one about which doubt might be felt by the kind of person who requires to be argued with and does not need castigation or lack perception. For those who feel doubt whether or not the gods ought to be honoured and parents loved, need castigation, while those who doubt whether snow is white or not, lack perception" (Aristotle, 1976, 105a 3). It is possible to read this passage as suggesting that debates about both kinds of questions are useless - the former because it can only be a „dispute" with an obvious „external" solution, and the latter because it is a „discussion" with an obvious „internal" decision procedure. 8. I am grateful to Alan Gross for bringing this controversy to my attention. 9. In Dascal (1995), in addition to having argued at length this point, I have tried to single out some of the most important epistemologically relevant characteristics of controversies. An English version of the paper in question can be read in my website: http://spinoza.tau.ac.il/hci/vip/dean.html.

Types of Polemics and Types of Polemical Moves

31

10. Functional characterizations of this type are shared by a wide range of approaches to dialogue analysis: ethnometodology, speech acts theory, action theory, rhetorical structure theory, the Geneva approach, dialogical logic, etc. 11. Around 1830, Schopenhauer wrote a little treatise, without title, which he never published. This treatise was posthumously published in 1864 and, more recently, in 1983, with the title Eristische Dialektik oder Die Kunst, Recht zu behalten, in 38 Kunstgriffen dargestellt (Zurich). My references are to the 1942 English translation.The introductory passages and some of the stratagems are reproduced in the chapter „Logic and dialectics" of his Parerga and Paralipomena. I am grateful to Massimo Mugnai for having called my attention to Schopenhauer's little treatise and to have presented me with a copy of the Italian translation, which contains an excellent essay by Franco Volpi (Milano, 1991). 12. Diversion is, in a sense, a form of digression. But in order to be effective, it should not contain explicit „digression markers", which would enable the opponent to dismiss easily their relevance (on different types of digressions, see Dascal/Katriel, 1979). 13. Leibniz himself employed this stratagem in his correspondence with Arnauld (cf. Dascal 1995a). 14. Perelman extends the scope of his theory of argumentation beyond the field of dialogical exchanges, as defined here, for he says that it will study even arguments one addresses oneself, in silent deliberation (Perelman 1977, 19). I do agree with him that there is room and need for research on, say, „polemical soliloquy", which would, among other things, take into account the polemical nature of the „polyphony" not only of our speech, but also of our thought. It would be interesting to find out, among other things, whether the three ideal types of moves here distinguished could occur in inner polemics with oneself. Can one, for example, apply stratagems to oneself? In so far as there is such a thing as self-deception, apparently the answer must be yes (see, in this connection, the interesting collection of essays compiled by Elster (ed ), 1985). With all its interest, that part of the study of inner argumentation that involves language use belongs to the domain of what I have proposed to call „psychopragmatics", rather than to „sociopragmatics", which deals with the outer uses of language (cf. Dascal 1983), to which our present topic belongs. 15. Passmore (1961) argues that most philosophical arguments are of this sort, namely, that they are not strictly formal, but at most „quasi-formal". 16. It is more difficult to imagine the converse. If a stratagem is successfully „used" in a given context as a proof, it does not thereby become a proof, but remains a (successful) stratagem. There seems to be a presumption about the scalar ordering of the „forces" of the three types, which constrains their interchangeability in use. 17. He calls them „reasonings", but in the context of this passage, this term refers to ways of conducting a debate, where „questions" and „answers" are exchanged.

References Aristotle (1976), Topica (transl. E.S. Forster). London, Cambridge, MA. Attardo, S. (1997), Competition and Cooperation: Beyond Gricean Pragmatics. In: Pragmatics & Cognition 5, 1948. Bluxn-Kulka, S. (1992), The Metapragmatics of Politeness in Israeli Society. In: Watts, J./Ide, S./Ehlich, K. (eds.), Politeness in Language: Studies in its History, Theory and Practice. Berlin, 255-281. Cohen, A./Dascal, M. (eds.) (1989), The Institution of Philosophy: A Discipline in Crisis?. La Salle, Illinois. Cohen, B. (ed.) (1978), Isaac Newton's Papers & Letters on Natural Philosophy, 2nd. ed. Cambridge, MA. Cremaschi, S./Dascal, M. (1996), Malthus and Ricardo on Economic Method. In: History of Political Economy 28, 475-511. Cremaschi, S./Dascal, M. (1998), Persuasion and Argument in the Malthus-Ricardo Correspondence. In: Research in the History of Economic Theory and Method 16. Dascal, M. (1977), Conversational Relevance. In: Journal of Pragmatics 1, 309-327. Dascal, M. (1983), Pragmatics and the Philosophy of Mind, vol. 1. Amsterdam. Dascal, M. (1989), Controversies as Quasi-Dialogues. In: Weigand, E./Hundsnurscher, F. (eds.), Dialoganalyse II, Band 1. Tübingen, 147-159. Dascal, M. (1990a), The Controversy about Ideas and the Ideas about Controversy. In: Gil (ed.), 61-100. Dascal, M. (1990b), La Arrogancia de la Razón. In: Isegoria 2, 75-103. Dascal, M. (1992), On the Pragmatic Structure of Conversation. In: Searle, J. R. et al., 35-56. Dascal, M. (1994), Speech Act Theory and Gricean Pragmatics. In: Tsohatzidis (ed.), 323-334.

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Dascal, M. (1995a), Strategies of Dispute and Ethics: Du Tort and La Place d'Autruy. In: Proceedings of the VI. Internationaler Leibniz-Kongress, vol. 2. Hannover, 108-116. Dascal, M. (1995b), Observations sur la Dynamique des Controverses. In: Cahiers de Linguistique Française 17 (2ème Partie), 99-121. Dascal, M. (1995c), Epistemología, Controversias y Pragmática. In: Isegoría 12, 8-43. Dascal, M. (1996), La Balanza de la Razón. In: Nudler, O. (ed.), La Racionalidad: Su Poder y sus Límites. Buenos Aires, Barcelona, México, 363-381. Dascal, M. (ed.) (1985), Dialogue: An Inter-Disciplinary Approach. Amsterdam. Dascal, M. (ed.) (1991), Cultural Relativism and Philosophy: North-American and Latin-American Perspectives. Leiden Dascal, M./Cremaschi, S. (forthcoming), The Malthus - Ricardo Correspondence: Sequential Structure, Argumentative Strategies, and Rationality. Dascal, M./Gross, A. (forthcoming), The Marriage between Pragmatics and Rhetoric. Dascal, M./Katriel, T. (1977), Between Semantics and Pragmatics: The Two Types of ,but' - Hebrew ,aval' and ,ela'. In: Theoretical Linguistics 4, 143-172. Dascal, M./Katriel, T. (1979), Digressions: A Study in Conversational Coherence. In: Poetics and Theory of Literature 4, 203-232. Dascal, M./Weizman, E. (1987), Contextual Exploitation of Interpretation Clues in Text Understanding: An Integrated Model. In: Verschueren, J./Bertucelli-Papi, M. (eds.), The Pragmatic Perspective. Amsterdam, 3146. van Eemeren, F./Grootendorst, R. (1984), Speech Acts in Argumentative Discussions. Dordrecht. Dominicy, M. (1994), How Scientists Argue. Two Case Studies. In: Parret, H. (ed.), Pretending to Communicate. Berlin, New York, 89-103. Elster, J. (ed.), (1985), The Multiple Self. Cambridge. Engelhardt Jr., H. T./Caplan, A. L. (eds.) (1987), Scientific Controversies: Case Studies in the Resolution and Closure of Disputes in Science and Technology. Cambridge. Fritz, G. (1994), Grundlagen der Dialogorganisation. In: Fritz, G./Hundsnurscher, F. (eds.), Handbuch der Dialoganalyse. Tübingen, 177-202. Fritz, G. (1995), Topics in the History of Dialogue Forms. In: Jucker, A. H. (ed.), Historical Pragmatics. Amsterdam, 469-498. Gil, F. (1985), Science and Controversy. In: Dascal (ed.), 353-366. Gil, F. (ed.), (1990), Scientific and Philosophical Controversies. Lisbon. Granger, G-G. (1985), Discussing or Convincing; An Approach towards a Pragmatical Study of the Languages of Science. In: Dascal (ed.), 339-352. Gross, A. G. (1990), The Rhetoric of Science. Cambridge, MA. Jacques, F. (1985), Du Dialogisme à la Forme Dialoguée. Sur les Fondements de l'Approche Pragmatique. In: Dascal (ed.), 27-56. Jacques, F. (1991), Argumentation et Stratégies Discursives. In: Lempereur, A. (ed.), L'Argumentation. Liège, 153-171. Kerbrat-Orecchioni, C. (1994), Les Interactions Verbales, tome III, Paris. Kuhn, T. S. (1962), The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago. Leibniz, G. W. [= GRUA], Textes inédits d'après la bibliothèque provinciale de Hanovre, ed. G. Grua (1948), Paris. Leibniz, G. W. [= VOR], Vorausedition zur Reihe VI - Philosophische Schriften. Münster (1982-1990). McCloskey, I. (1985), The Rhetoric of Economics, Madison, WI. McCloskey, I. (1994), How Economists Persuade. In: Journal of Economic Methodology I, 15-32. McEvoy, S. (1995), L'Invention Défensive, Paris. Mann, W. C. and Thompson, S. A. (1988), Rhetorical Structure Theory: Toward a Functional Theory of Text Organization. In: Text 8, 243-281. Passmore, J. (1961), Philosophical Reasoning, London. Pera, M. (1991), Scienza e Retorica, Roma, Bari. Perelman, C. (1977), L'Empire Rhétorique: Rhétorique et Argumentation, Paris. Perelman, C./Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1970), Traité de l'Argumentation: La Nouvelle Rhétorique, Bruxelles. Potte-Bonneville, M. (1992), La Violence dans le Débat Philosophique: La Controverse Derrida/Searle. In: D. Vernant (ed.), Du Dialogue (= Recherches sur la Philosophie et le Langage 14), Paris, 219-248. Rolf, E. (1989), How to Generalize Grice's Theory of Conversation. In: Manuscrito 12(1), 55-69.

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Roulet, E. (1989). Une Forme peu Etudiée d'Echange Agonal: La Controverse. In: Cahiers de Praxématique 13, 718.

Roulet, E. (1995). L'Analyse du Dialogue dans une Approche Modulaire des Structures du Discours: l'Exemple du Dialogue Romanesque. In: Hundsnurscher, F./Weigand, E. (eds.), Beiträge zur Dialogforschung, vol. 8. Tübingen, 1-34. Schelling, T. C. (1960), The Strategy of Conflict. Cambridge, MA. Schopenhauer, A. (1942), The Art of Controversy. In: Complete Essays of Schopenhauer (transi. T.C. Saunders), New York. Schopenhauer, A. (1974), Parerga and Paralipomena, vol. 2 (transi. E.F.J. Payne), Oxford. Searle, J. R. et al. (1992), (On) Searle on Conversation. Amsterdam. Tsohatzidis, S.L. (ed.) (1994), Foundations of Speech Act Theory: Philosophical and Linguistic Perspectives. London. Toulmin, S. E. (1969), The Uses of Argument. Cambridge. Vemant, D. (1996), Dialectique, Forme Dialogale et Dialogique. In: Actes du Colloque „Le Dialogique". Weigand, E. (1996), The State of the Art in Speech Act Theory. In: Pragmatics & Cognition 4: 367-406. Wierzbicka, A. (1993), .Cultural Scripts' as a Key to Cross-Cultural Pragmatics. Paper delivered at the 4th International Pragmatics Conference, Kobe.

Edda Weigand

Emotions in Dialogue

Emotions and scientific research Emotions as part of the action game Expressing emotions as communicative purpose Principles of Emotion in dialogue 4.1 Emotion under control 4.2 Emotion and rationality in conflict 4.2.1 Emotions rationally overcome 4.2.2 Emotions leading to quarrels and the breaking off of the dialogue 4.3 Emotion dominating 5. Concluding remarks References

1. 2. 3. 4.

1. Emotions and scientific research There are times when we are obsessed by specific ideas. I remember the 70s when we were fascinated by the idea that linguistic meaning could be analysed and built up from a few atomic concepts, an idea which on the whole is based on a model of language as a mathematical logical system. Times have changed; now we wonder how one could have believed that language follows logical rules. However, even in analysing complex dialogues we have not quite abandoned this logical line of approach since we continue to define communication as rational behaviour. From this position, it is understandable that we excluded such confusing phenomena as emotions from our subject matter. However, in doing so, we should be aware that we are still following an idealized artificial notion of language. In trying to define emotions, we arrive at negatively specified criteria: emotions are neither rational nor conventional, nor strictly predictable, „not in our head but in our heart". Thus we are faced with the dilemma that they do not fit into a notion of science dominated by methodological concepts like rationality, conventionality, causality, and repeatability. How can we escape from this dilemma? Either we keep to this notion of science and restrict ourselves to the belief that human beings are completely rationally and conventionally acting beings or, at least, that the rational and conventional area could be abstracted. Or we have to change our view of science and this I think we have already done. We are no longer obsessed only by the rational and conventional. In the first place, we are interested in language use as a natural phenomenon and therefore we try to include as much as possible, if necessary even the irrational and the unlimited. Thus we have found a fascinating new path which we have to follow when we try to come a bit nearer to an understanding of ourselves. Emotions are

36

Edda Weigand

always present in dialogic interaction as they are a constitutive part of human beings (cf. also Danes 1997). Let us first try to make the concept of emotion more concrete. What are emotions? There is no generally accepted answer in the literature to which we could refer. Emotions or affects constitute a proper field of human abilities that is characterized by the criteria „not rational", „not conventional", „not strictly causally predictable". Emotions then comprise clear types of feelings such as love, hatred, jealousy, anger, joy, sadness, disappointment together with more diffuse types of mood such as irritability, sensibility, aggression, and stress. Orthodox speech act theory has not totally ignored emotional concepts even if, according to Searle, it is intended to be a theory of the conventional. We find the concept of expressing emotions as a specific type of illocutionary force, the type of the „expressives", and we might believe that we can find them embedded in other speech act types as „expressed psychological state". However, what is called „expressed psychological state" comprises heterogeneous phenomena. For instance, the illocutionary force of a representative is always bound to the expressed psychological state of a belief. A belief cannot count as emotion. Besides belief, intention, desire there are other expressed psychological states which clearly represent emotions such as regret and pleasure. Moreover, emotions are covered by the category of socalled perlocutionary effects which is, according to Austin, the category of unconventional effects. Thus, in orthodox speech act theory, we have three different categories that deal with emotions: an illocutionary force, a psychological state, and non-conventional effects on the side of the hearer. Emotion is also tackled in other disciplines such as psychology, sociology, and linguistics (cf. e.g. Stankiewicz 1972, Danes 1990, Fiehler 1990, Fries 1996). It is mainly treated as a phenomenon on its own which can be added to the other components or levels of communication. Such a view corresponds to a modular approach which investigates first modules in isolation, among them the module emotion, and then aims to add all the modules together to form the whole phenomenon. In a modular framework we can describe emotions being mostly unconsciously expressed by gestures and facial expressions, for instance the emotion of sadness being expressed by crying. In this sense, emotions are a concept of meaning expressed in various ways. There are not only non-verbal visual expressions such as crying, but also linguistic ones, e.g. intonation which Danes (1990, 168) has called the „main carrier of emotion" and lexical items, or even the expression of silence or speechlessness. Emotions as a module are also accounted for by Sadock (1994, 397) who distinguishes „three distinct and autonomous functional aspects" of a speech act, the informational, the social, and the affective, emotive aspect. In dialogic interaction, however, emotions cannot be isolated. They are on the one hand dependent on the interlocutor and on how he or she sees and evaluates the world, and on the other hand, they influence the sequence of actions. From modules, i.e. constructs, only constructs can be rebuilt not a complex natural whole. As linguists we are not scientists of emotions nor of dialogue and emotion but of emotions in dialogue.

37

Emotions in Dialogue

2.

Emotions as part of the action game

There is only one way to tackle a complex natural whole such as emotions in dialogue. The first step has to be to look for the minimal unit which is independent, communicatively autonomous instead of isolating components which in isolation have lost their function. In the history of linguistics, the sentence was just such a minimal unit par excellence but it was - as we now know - an artificial unit. Beyond the limit of the sentence the search for a new natural whole began. It led, on the one hand, to unresolvable problems in the case of discourse that were overcome by declaring it a merit to be an uncircumscribable area, and it led, on the other hand, to new seemingly natural units such as the speech act or the dialogic sequence of action and reaction. However, as we as linguists know, we do not communicate with single speech acts, and not even the sequence of action and reaction suffices to establish an independent dialogic unit. Actions are always actions of human beings, i.e. they are not independent from the acting person. As such they include not only speech acts but also practical actions, not only linguistic but also visual and cognitive means like inferences. The minimal unit therefore has to comprise the complex whole of the acting and reacting of human beings who use all their abilities together in order to come to a mutual understanding. This whole can only be the dialogic action game with human beings at the centre, which in its minimal form is based on a two-part sequence of action and reaction. It is only the concept of the action game that can take account of all the complexities of human action including emotions in a consistent way without reducing action to the lines of a closed, totally rational system (cf. also Naumann 1994). The unit of the action game rests on two major principles: the Action Principle AP and the Dialogic Principle DP (cf. Weigand 1989, 1991, 1995, 1997a). The AP means that we communicate because we have specific communicative purposes that can all be derived from the general purpose of coming to an understanding. Action consists in pursuing purposes by specific means. Communicative action consists in pursuing communicative, i.e. dialogic purposes by communicative means. Communicative means are based on human abilities. There is no separate linguistic ability of speaking which exists independently of another separate ability of seeing and another of thinking. Human beings use all their abilities together to achieve their purposes, and, in doing so, they are always subject to emotions. (Fig.l)

dialogic purpose F (state of affairs p) He lives at home! At home he has to behave as his parents want, but what he does privately when he goes out with me or with someone else no problem - he says it it doesnt interest them as long as nothing happens that he smashes something or - when he comes back wastedhe has to know himself how much he can take and that's OK? Do you think it's OK?! in that case he LEARNS something HE LEARNS SOMETHING! LOOK AT THAT! you tell me hey Frankie! be careful this isnt too good Frankie that isn't too good and how can I learn how life works? How can I leam? why? it's true! If you told me Frank if you touch that you hurt yourself and I dont touch it because Wait a minute! one day, when you won't be here anymore, you can wait until I touch it father told methat it hurts. hehehe but if I see it, touch it and hurt myself I have experienced ah it hurts! and I'll never touch it again! but if you already told me, how should I leam from it? you! No! in the village ah - the the old people say: a warned man is a half-saved man well do you think that in German families they dont tell their children? He? You think they don't tell them? only - You cani consider freedom only from that point of view - they they they live how can I explain that?

EX (4) DUR 3 A 025: Famiglie della bassa Italia 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Dom:

Hdu: Dom: Hdu: Dom:

Fra: Dom: Fra: Hdu: Fra:

Dom:

genauso! Trovese giusto come fanne i talian' inda a bassa Italia mo' s'è aggiustai' cu i::: - ragazz' femmene mo - /come fann' ca non ponn' ussi /e come ere prime non era richtig • er' viele ehm troppo troppe::: ma ce so: pure / mo ceri famiglie /e ce so pure mo! ma mo: e:: mo! mo! pe dice accusi esempie de Andonietta aquà ca:: le dicete a mamma a buscia o no coma a figlia di Nicola va: un da na a Geburtstagsfeier /a ja un den sind sie - un denn sie sie in de Diskothek/ /e aropp' su indù u Remember!/ a ja!! anders können sie es nicht machen! und so - und so lügen sie wieso:: und so! aber wenn - bei ich meine bei der Deutsche meiste deutsche Familie isch

exactly! do you think it's right how families from southern Italy behave? is it right how the the female youth now /that they can't go out /well as it was before it wasn't right it was too much but there also are even /now certain families/ /and there also are now but now it's now! Now! let's take the example of Antonietta there she tells her mother a lie or no like Nicola's daughter she goes to a birthday party /and oh yeah they are - and then they are in a club/ /and then they are at Remember/ well! They cant do it differently and so - and so they lie why? just like that! but if - in I mean in German families in most German families it's

isch es manchmal au so aber

sometimes it's the same way but

Observations on the Interactional Sociolinguistic Analysis of Disputes and Discussions 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

Fra:

Hdu:

Fra: Hdu:

genauso: - aber aber bei der Eltern die wo anständig sind und alles da sagen sie • der Sohn oder die Tochter Mutti Mutti ich bin in der Diskothek wenn der achtzehn isch, meinsch der hört was du sagt?! du sagst mein Freund, in Diskothek dürfst nit neingehe! da denkt er hufTI Bin achtzehn und kann i doch in Diskothek neigehe oder?! ja! und des finde Franchl' sind blöd - der Vater und Mutter normal! darum du wann mir habe gesagse vielleicht ich einmal nein habe gesagt? habe ich gesagt gehe - bloß, habe i gesagt vorsieht! /du muß jetzt nit von dir ausgehe du muß von de andere ausgehe /und so! und so! und so!/ könnet die andere au sage tes sind ein Fehler

143

Exactly - but with parents those who are decent and so there the son or the daughter say Mama, I'm at - I'm at the disco when he's 18 do you think he listens to what you say? You say: my friend, you cant go to the disco! He thinks: uff! I'm 18 I can go to the disco cant I!? Yes! Franky and I think that's silly too father and mother normal! therefore when you told me did I ever say no? I said g o — only, I said, „be careful" /you cant take yourself you have to take the others/ /exactly! exactly! Exactly!/lhe others can say that too that's a mistake

In EX (3) and (4) it is the children who assume the more active role in the argumentation looking for and displaying arguments in order to convince their father about the relevance and certainty of their claim. The new elements of their knowledge and ideology are not based on a simple theoretical comparison between the German and southern Italian way of upbringing; their assessments are based on lived personal experience and on their German and Italian socialization in contact with each other. They feel directly affected by the negative consequences of the southern Italian cultural norms as they interact in everyday life with Germans. In comparison with their schoolmates they don't enjoy a sufficient freedom in their actions and perceive the disadvantages of a too strict (southern Italian) upbringing by their parents, and the ethical advantages of the more liberal German upbringing as well. Several relevant elements of this sociocultural context appear in the background of the discussions as contextualized in many features of the argumentational structure of EX (3) and (4). The display of its relevance can be seen e. g. in the overwhelming and leading role they take in the construction of the argumentation in comparison to EX (1) and (2). As already pointed out, in EX (3) and (4) it is the two brothers who make examples as arguments with a kind of didactic modality, contextualized through metapragmatical expressions (EX (3) 1, 5, 21, 41, 45; EX (4) 1, 9, 13, 15, 37). This method was already employed by their father. Furthermore - other than in EX (5) - they fully agree in disagreeing with their father's negative assessment of the German way of raising children. After accepting Dom's „mitigating" repair on his claim about the freedom of the children in German families (EX (3) 5), Frank's argument - in form of a hypothetical evaluative example on the good relationship between German parents and their children and on its positive effects - is chiefly directed to counter his father's opinion. But his father only raises very briefly his doubts on this argumentation (EX (3) 19, 25, 29); he concludes the defense of his implicit position characteristically using a proverb (transmitted by wise old people in his village) in 38-40 as an argument in order to reestablish his authority. Frank partially agrees with the wisdom of the proverb, but only to claim its validity for the German parents and grandparents and its interpretation in conformity to freedom (41-45). Especially in EX (4) the children ally against the very strict old southern Italian way of bringing up children. Dom's rhetorical questions (1,3) have a more pathetic and concitate style; they imply a strong disagreement with his fathers' presupposed claim and argument, displaying an inverse counterclaim. The supporting argument is presented in the form of an example from his

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own personal experience about the way in which a too strict and unliberal upbringing by immigrant parents whose children have to lie to them (9-12). After a „precising" repair requested by Dom about sporadic similar cases in German families, Frank completes Dom's story (13, 1516); and - similarly to his brother Dom - he also tries to make an argument for the common claim using as an argument e contrario an opposite hypothetical example of good free upbringing (21-30). In this way both seem to infer inductively a general rule different from that of their father. Their father - assuming the role that usually is his children's - only limits himself to express some doubts, to require specifications (5 f., 17), to degeneralize the validity of the stigmatized rule for all Italian parents (8) or for himself (33-36); in fact his children admit that this does not apply to him (37-38). In such a dialectic process a form of consent is achieved (3132, 39-40) which reflects a form of balance between the two cultures in contact and goes in the direction of the construction of a new immigrant culture, in which „liberal upbringing" and „authority of the father" go hand in hand.

3.2.3 Argumentation in the dialectic confrontation between the two cultures and their defendants The process of dialectic confrontation between the two cultures in contact and their defendants in the situation of migrants is convincingly formulated by the children in the episode of dispute in the next excerpt. EX (6) DUR 3 A 210: Du wohnsch hier du kannsch gar ntt beurteile 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

Fra:

Dom: Fra: Hdu: Fra: Dom: Alb: Fra: All: Hdu: Alb: Fra: Dom:

a du wohnsch hier: du kannsch - du kannsch es meiner Meinung nach gar nrt richtig beurteilen weil weil du bist da unten aufgezogen und du lebst jetzt hier und tu ziehsch uns so auf und wir kriege tes mit von andere Familie - wir kriege - sozusage beides mit du bringst uns vor wie du des früher da unte geiemt hasch und wir sehe jetzt wie es hier isch warum streite wir denn ab und zu mal?! weil ich siehe wie es hier isch und weisch wie es da unte war: und jetzt kommsch du und denn komme ich: wer hat jetzt Recht von uns beide:?! keiner! du sagst weil ich alt bin und ich sag weil ich jung bin oder? ja ich habe immer Recht! a ja! also siehsch! /hehehe/ /hehehe/ aber wenn du manchmal nicht Recht hasch! ich bin der Papa a::uaaaa::: - mein Wort stimmt! hehehe na:: na:: i: wa:: - - quanne i habe nix Recht! aber des isch bei de Eltern a: na:: - - zwei drittel von de Eltern isch es so ich bin der Chef im Hause und der Sohn - - pfu! des isch wie Schüler und Lehrer oder Meister und Lehrling bisch immer am gleiche — oder Chef und e:: - Arbeiter

you live here you cant you cant In my view you cannot judge it the right way because you grew up down there and now you live here you raise us this way and we see it from other families we see - basically both you tell us things the way you learned then down there and we see it the way it is here why do we have disputes from time to time? because 1 see things how they are here and you as they were there and then you say and then 1 say who of us is right now? nobody! you say because I'm old and 1 say because I'm young or not? yes I'm always right! yes! do you see? /hehehe/ /hehehe/ but sometimes when you aren't right! I'm the father auaaaaa - my word is right! hehehe well well when I'm not right! but that's the way with parents no two thirds of the parents are like that I'm the boss at home and the son — pfu! that's like pupil and teacher or master and apprentice it's always the same — or boss and eh employee

The claim and the arguments together with the implicit praemissa major or general rule of knowledge and ideology among the members of an immigrant family and their reciprocal

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attitudes are formulated in the long first turn by the son Frank in 1-15 and completed by himself and by Dom and Alb respectively in 1-15 , 17-18, 16, 30fF. and 27. The counters of their father are only smiling approvals and corroborations of their assertions, whereby he playfully insists on his unquestionable authority. In spite of all displayed contrasts and disputations, their father's authority together with his property of conserver and transmitter of the old Italian culture is recognized by his children (as activities or predicates bound to the category „father"). In order to reestablish the social order they see themselves as renewers of the old culture and its integrators in the culture of the host land. In this example, we can furthermore observe, in the formulation of the children, that family disputes are normal and develop partially from differences of point of views and of authority relationship between the parents and the younger generation.

3 .2.4 Argumentation and handling or negotiation of dissent/consent in assessing the aesthetic values in the cultures But compared to those used in EX (4) and (5), there are other methods by which the children negotiate an initial dissent with their father's claims in a partial consent. In this case, an issue which has been divergently defined or assessed by both parties, will be further specified interactively, explained or modified until at least a partial consent is achieved. Consider for this strategy the following excerpt. E X (6) D U R 2 B 105: Prodotti Kalian! e prodotti tedeschi 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

Hdu:

Dom: Hdu: Dom: Hdu: Dom:: Hdu: Dom: Hdu:

Dom::

Hdu: Dom: Hdu:

Dom: Hdu:

mo' emme dice quello che è: tu vuoi mitte mo' ma macchina fatta cacciata nu tipo italiano cu na macchina nu tipo cacciat' tedesch' a machen'7 ¡a! allora propri' inda a questo fatto la Germania è più forte vogli' di no! doch! nei Domenich' doch! 'hhh de fatte de tracch' - di tutte quelle:: e:: a a Germania sai com'è fatt7 mo te diche i:: com'è fatt' • è fatt' - lor fann' se me parlese che è fatt' più stabile più stabi:le - questo non ti dico il contrario però s e tu mi parlese di:: - di finezze come ugualmente guardese de: gii italiani vann' più tropp' - quann' fanne i machen' vann' assai sopra u sporti :vo • /si vede già com' fanno u stil' /ja! - - ja! • - ja! però de cose - a Germania invec' va più di sicurezz' de:: /razionai' - che vonn' - non von' a benzina a benzina /ecco! Ecco! ecco! e: e: guarda guarda che se noi se noi vogliamo proprio guarda Domeniche - se noi proprio vogliamo pensano a u futuro i tedeschi /invece gli italiani - fann' semp' sportivi i machene /se s e noi vogliamo - ma s e noi vogliamo qua guardiamo qua in Germania proprio dai fabbricati • guarda che se noi vogliamo qua le fabbricate - la prima base! le mure so' tutti stuo:rt' - -

now we have to tell the truth: do you really want to compare an Italian type of car with a German type of car cars? yes! exactly in this Germany is better, let me say nol yes! no Domenico! yes! concerning tricks and all that stuff:: do you know how things are in Germany? now 1 tell you how they are - they are - they make when you tell me they are more robust more robust - on this 1 don't say the contrary but when you talk about - about particularities or if you consider Italians go more too much for - when they make cars they go very much for sportiness /you already see it from the way they style /yes! — yes! — yes! / but the things - Germany goes more for security for /rationality - they want -they don't want g a s g a s /exactly! exactly! Exactly! and look look If we really want look Domenico if we really want to Germans think about the future /the Italians instead - they still build sporty cars If if we want but rf we want now let u s consider this here in Germany look at the houses look if we what now the buildings first the walls are all slanted

146 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

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Hdu: Dom:

Mim: Dom:

Mim: Dom: Hdu: Dom:

yes this is true houses in Italy are more - well the style is more beautiful /my friends - they say that houses in Italy arent that nice

si eh iste è giuste i case in Italie so cchiù - allore lo stile è cchiù belle /(....) li cumbagne mie - dicene che le case in Italie non sono tante belle /guarda che te fanne case in Italie guarda che c'hai da guardare (...)non ce sta niende da fa: quando io vade:: a - andiamo in Como semp' dop' che passiam' a frontiere i sembe i non è nu minuto che non guarda a strada sempre a guardare come fanno quella bella architettura

/look they build houses in Italy look you can only stare there's nothing to do about this when I go to - we go to C o m o always after crossing the border there isn' one minute in which I don't watch the road always looking at how they do that beautiful architecture

huhu si si si si die gefällt ma - da gefällt ma Architekte - jetzt wenn i Architektur in Italie si des würd ma gefalle in Italie zu mache so Zeichnen - des wäre echt spitze tes würde mich reize! e mich reize qua invece è più:: - - /quadrato /qua è semp' u stess' qua è sembe u stess' - qua ogn' parte vedese u cerne::nde semb' u stess' schi:f - des stimmt

yes!yes! yes!yes! I like it - there 1 like • architects - when 1 see architecture in Italy would like it to make such plans in Italy that would be cool that would really excite me! here instead it is more /square /here it's always the same here it's always the same here you see concrete everywhere always the same old shit - that's true.

Using a strong style (cf. the metapragmatic modalizator in 1 and the use of rhetorical question in 2-4), the father asserts with a claim/argument the superiority of Italian cars. In a manner just as strong as his father's, Dom first counters (5) with astonishment and rhetorical doubt and thereafter with a specular opposite counter assertion (7-8). There follows a concitate duet of yesno-yes-no-alternation (9-12) after which his father is obliged to make an argument for his former claim, or to modify it; he does (13-19) the latter, specifying that instead of robustness he means the beauty of Italian cars (bringing as a prototypical predicate bound to the category „car" an aesthetic quality). Dom agrees with this reformulation, in which the comparison of German and Italian cars occurs in terms of the ,,aesthetics"/„robustness" (or „rationality" and „security") distinction (20-22) enhancing with further details his assertion which functions at the same time as a claim and an argument. He further agrees with his father's expansion of the claim/argument extended to the buildings (31-34). Here Dom also completely agrees with his father's claim, intending it as an aesthetic assessment concerning the beauty of Italian architecture (35ff). He also reinforces it with an argument/example (41-44) and emphatically expresses his admiration for the aesthetical values of Italian architecture (1. 45-60) and his contempt for the plain German buildings. But in this way, Dom does not diverge so much from the German stereotype toward the aesthetics of Italian products and at the same time he contributes to construct and reinforce his double identity as a migrant. A similar process of argumentation can be seen in the next excerpt (7), where the father and his two sons, in the quaestio concerning the comparison of Italian and German food and cooking, agree in assessing the superiority of the former over the latter on the basis of feelings or spontaneous judgments of aesthetics or taste, while Frank, basing himself on non-aesthetic grounds for his judgments and attitudes, fully dissents from the other members of his family. E X (7) D U R 2 B 190: M o d o di vivere in Kalla e qua: mangiare 1 2

Mim:

e tra ¡1 modo di vivere per esempio che ci sta in Italia e il modo di vivere che ci sta qua

And so and between the way of lite for example that there is in Italy and the way of life that there is here

Observations on the Interactional Sociolinguistic Analysis of Disputes and Discussions 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76

Hdu:

Mim: Hdu:

Fra: Dom: Hdu:

Dom: Hdu: Fra: Hdu: Dom: Hdu: Fra: Dom: Hdu: Dom: Fra:

Dom: Fra: Hdu: Fra: Hdu: Dom: Fra:

Dom: Fra: Hdu: Mim: Dom: Hdu: Dom: Fra: Dom:

Alb:

guarda de vivere - la prima base noi - s e noi - ecco! a corto a corto! s e noi ci facciamo ii conto - - fa prima base s e sei - a C o m o - in Italia - passata che è la frontiere - - a prima base — ci sta T U T T I L E G I O R N I che criato nu juome a nu paiese nu juome a n'ato ce sta tutti le giorni lu mercato ce sta u mercat' dda robba de mangia roba frisca! - a prima base! che tu po se vai in Italie a prima base tu te vo fa na bella:: diciamo na bella minestra di pise:ile:: de cose - qua addò s o ? ! aha roba fresca cosi ah roba fresca! qua quande è andat' all'altra volta c'erene già - hei viste? si emme pahate a quattemila a quattemila lire le pummudore me pare che le pahamme - - s i a quattemila lire - PERO'!! c'erene! qua non g'erene erene belle pumodori erene! c'erene cipulle - fresche! - e mbece - già chista è la prima base sope a u mangià che tu vai là e addo te girese girese vedese a:: • mette a scende lu tarocci' a terre hu? /hehehe /a prima base vedese a tutte le parte vedese:: vedese belle aggiustate vedese belle bancherelle aggiustate - tutte per bene! a qua qua che c'è?! cosa logica alta c'è to:: • più sole qua dice pecchè c'è più sole! aber e s s e tusch besser hier wieso!? wieso? - - - wie meinsch du tes? wieso sind besser? was ißt du in Italien?! - • wenn i frage dürfte du, du muß mol - ehm /(...) jetzt zuhöre - Franco muß du zuhöre /do e s s e genau wie do wo der nach Venedig gange isch der hat jede T a g etwas anderes gesse! wenn du in der Wirtschaft gohst aber du! du gosch it in de Wirtschaft du wohnst daheim! - w a s ißt du daheim?! hahuhu iß du da viel Vitamine?! eh was habs do?! da hanne tun se aber besser esse! wieso!? ha:: wa: wa: des stimmt jetzt au wieder nit was du sagst /des kommt ganz auf de Koch au an /die tun tja gesünder e s s e - die tun tja gesünder e s s e ich siehe des jetzt nicht von der Wirtschaft her sondern von zu H a u s e • privat jo!! von a Haus privat! jo: e che te mangese tu in Itali'? te mangese sembe spaghetto e spaghetto o minestre! eh wa essete do?! hehehe des kommt auf de Koch drauf an! e:: w a s e s s e s e do?! — j e t z t schwätzmo nit! Kartoffelpüree - - da! je::den Mittag siehst den Brei hast du hast du Grießbrei g e s s e wenn hasch des ietzmal Grießbrei gesse! im Krankenhaus! aber jeden Tag! da isch mo hochkomme desglaubsch! hehehe jeden Morgen der Greißbrei! quann' m'hanno operato a vocch' also dort wo ich war, die zwei W o c h e des war in Italien - Südtirol: - Esse! Optimal!! jeden Mittag etwas anderes!

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look concerning living - the first thing - if we - well! in brief! W h e n we consider everything - the first thing when you are - in C o m o - in Italy — after you cross the border - the first thing E V E R Y D A Y there is in every day created by God one day in a village one day in another there is a market every day there is a market with stuff to eat fresh stuff! the first thing! then when you go to Italy the first thing you want to make is a nice let's say a nice pea soup where are they, here?! ah fresh stuff like that ah fresh stuff! when we went down last time did you s e e ? - there already were yes we have paid potatoes for four thousand lire for four thousand lire tomatoes yes I think we paid them yes for four thousand lire BUT! - - - - here were some! here there weren't any, and what beautiful tomatoes there were! there were onions - fresh I - and here instead? that's the first point, concerning the food. when you go there:: take a walk and youll see what? /hehehe /the first thing you see everywhere you s e e you s e e nicely set up you s e e nice stands - everything set up nicely! and here here what is there here!? that's obvious there there is more.. - sun! he says there is more sun! But here you eat better why!? why? — what do you m e a n ? why is it better? what do you eat in Italy!? - - if 1 may ask you you have to to - ehm /(...)listen now -em Franco you have to listen /There they eat the s a m e a s here/ when he went to Venice he ate something different every day! if you go to a restaurant but you! you don't go to restaurants you live at home - what do you eat home? hahuhu do you eat a lot of vitamins there? what was that? down there they eat better! why!? hey wait that's not true what you're saying /it depends on the cook /they eat more healthily here they eat more healthily 1 dont see it from the point of view of the restaurants but from home - private yes! privately at home! yes! and what do you eat in Italy? you always eat spaghetti or spaghetti or soup! what do they eat here? hehehe it depends on the cookl what do they eat? let's not talk crap! mashed potatoes - there! every day you s e e that mush did you • did you eat pudding when was the last time you ate pudding in hospital! But everyday! and that sucked, believe me hehehe every morning pudding! when 1 w a s operated in my mouth well there where 1 was, two weeks that was in Italy - SUdtirol the food! Perfect! Every day something different!

After his father's long account (only the end appears in the text) on the plenty and variety of savory beautiful fruits and fresh vegetables at Italian markets and shops (1-3) in comparison with

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Germany (4) reinforced by Dom's arguments of the sunny climate in Italy (5), Frank adversatively (cf. ma (but)) counters these claims/arguments with the assertion of the superiority of German food (7). Dom and his father now unite against him countering with incredulity and with questions requesting argument or explanation (8, 9, 10). Frank replies with a rhetorical and sarcastic question (11) which functions as a „specifying" argument/claim. Thereupon Dom withdraws into annoyance and „metapragmatically" appeals to Frank's conversational cooperation (12-13). He himself brings an argument/example from Alb's experience in Italy (1516) while his father counters with the claim/argument of the availability of good food at least equally in both countries (14). Frank tries to invalidate Dom's argument specifying that what is at stake is home cooking and eating and not in restaurants (17-19, 27-29). The dispute gradually shifts to involve almost only the brothers, becoming conflictual, while their father allies with Dom and Alb and only counters Frank with brief (partly rhetorical) questions (8,10, 22, 24, 33, 36) or echoing or mirroring specifying counterclaims (33). Dom and Alb overwhelmingly continue their argumentation based on examples from their good experiences with Italian and bad experiences with German food and cuisine (15-16, 40-43, 44-46). Frank repeatedly reasserts the superiority of German food and cuisine in comparison with the Italian (7, 23); as „because-motivations" he uses the argument that German cuisine contains more vitamins and is therefore healthier (21, 2728). In general we can remark, in contrast to his brothers, who use more examples from their personal experience for accounting and assessing the superiority of Italian food and cuisine, Frank, in order to defend the opposite position, uses more assertions/claims as arguments to assess the state of affairs. This strategy appears to be more strongly based on ideology. But how can we reconstruct the interpretation of the motivated accountability of Frank's meaning of „good cuisine and food"? We can because the necessary general rule (praemissa major), which does not appear in the text, is contextualized through the correspondent claims and arguments. On the ground of these, it may be inferred and approximately reconstructed as „The best cuisine is that which is healthy because it contains more vitamins"; whereas the general rule not expressed but contextualized in the text and therefore inferable from the claims and examples/arguments of Dom, Alb and their father can be approximately reconstructed as: „The best cuisine is that which is full of variety and tastes good". That is, we have once again in EX (7) (as well as in EX (6)) the opposition „aesthetic feeling" versus „rationality", „taste and variety" versus „health and vitamins". We see that the different interpretation of a category device „good cuisine" depends on the different types of predicates the speakers bind to it (Sacks 1972). For its part this is connected with the different types of relevance and attitude which originate according to the different networks of interaction in which the speakers take part (e. g. peer group, families of friends). In this way, the divergent opinions between Frank and his brothers are accountable. It is also understandable that discussions and disputes in the family are the best manner and place to handle such quaestiones, even if they remain open and do not take a visible end (cf. Knoblauch 1990, Vuchinich 1990).

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4. Concluding remarks From the preceding observations we can draw some interesting conclusions. - When the topics of discourse concern differences in the sociocultural knowledge and ideology of the interactants, the different opinions, views and assessments arising originate problems in the conversation. But at the same time, they provide the motivational relevance for treating and solving these problems by choosing and using the genre disputes and discussions as the most available ones for a solution. - Different elements of the sociocultural knowledge which appear necessarily contextualized in discourse may be confronted, transformed, enriched and made compatible with one another. - In disputes and discussions common knowledge and ideologies - which are the fundamentals of culture - are not only displayed and deployed through out, but they are also constructed and reconstructed in order to solve the problems of the life of immigrants and to build - based on a kind of consent - a new double identity. - Divergence of opinion and interpretation of a determinate rule expressed by the disputants in the claims and arguments may depend on different types and degrees of relevance of that rule for the speakers. These types are associated with different attitudes and with the different categorizations which the interactants make of the same thing. This depends on the further different networks of interaction the speakers are part of. - Emotions play a relevant role in the disputes and discussions examined above. They are rhetoric, i.e. originating from and directed to solve problems of everyday life through transmission and acquisition of knowledge. These are not only rational (more dialecticorum) but also of „ethical relevance". (For this conception of dialogue (disputatio) defended in the classical world and in the renaissance cf. Sigonius 1737). - It can be inferred that the force and the power (vw et potentia) of the arguments are not a function of rational truth - as a sheer rationalistic rhetoric would imply - but in function of their sociocultural relevance for the life-world of the disputants (cf. Campbell 1992). - From the point of view of interactional interpretive sociolinguistics, the enormous role of metalinguistic and metapragmatic reflexivity (cf. Silverstein 1992) manifested in the indexical contextualization devices at all three levels of context in everyday communication and in particular in everyday disputes and discussions has been confirmed. - The forms of inference used in the disputes and discussion in migrants' families are of inductive and abductive kind; the former is used in inferring new or modified general rules, the latter in different interpretation of an implicit rule in common. The general rule which is not present in the text can be inductively inferred through its contextualization expressed by the claim and/or arguments. A date/argument can be abductively inferred in this way as well. - Disputes, discussions and the narrative subgenres associated with them, with or without consent or conflict, seem to be the most typical and never ending activities in everyday families' life - in particular in crucial cultural turning-point and contact situations as is the case in

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immigrants' families, whereby they display their functional relevance in socialization and legitimization of different customs and points of view.

Note 1. In the transcripts, the symbol ' (high inverted comma) after a word final consonant indicates schwa (3) or probable vowel omission: p', k', t \ etc.

References Campbell, J. L. (1992), An Applied Relevance Theory of the Making and Understanding of Rhetorical Arguments. In: Language and Communication 12, 145-155. Coulter, J. (1990), Elementary Properties of Argument Sequences. In: Psathas, G. (ed.), Interaction Competence, Washington, D C., 181-203 (Studies in Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis, Nr.l). di Luzio, A. (1991), Non ci puoi parlare. Sulla comunicazione tra i figli degli immigrati e i loro compagni tedeschi, sullo sfondo di comportamenti e attività di ogni giorno. In: Studi Italiani di Linguistica Teorica ed Applicata 20, 351-409. Grice, P. (1975), Logic and Conversation. In: Cole, P./Morgan, J. (eds.), Syntax and Semantics 3, New York, 4158. Gumperz, J. (1982), Discourse Strategies, Cambridge. Gumperz, J. (1991), Contextualization and Understanding. In: Duranti, A./Goodwin, Ch. (eds.), Rethinking Context. Language as an Interactive Phenomenon, Cambridge, 229-252. Knoblauch, H. (1991), The Taming of Foes: The Avoidance of Asymmetry in Informal Discussions. In: Markova, I./Foppa, K. (eds.) Asymmetries in Dialogue, Hertfordshire, 143-65. Lausberg, H. (1963), Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik, München. Luckmann, T. (1986), Grundformen der gesellschaftlichen Vermittlung des Wissens: Kommunikative Gattungen. In: Neidhardt, F./Lepsius, M. RAVeiß, J. (eds.), Kultur und Gesellschaft. Sonderheft 27. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 190-211. Müller, F./di Luzio, A. (1995), Stories as Examples in Every Day Argument. In: Versus Quaderni di studi semiotici, 70/71, 115-145. Sacks, H. (1972), On the Analyzability of Stories by Children. In: Gumperz, J./Hymes, D. (eds.), Directions in Sociolinguistics. The Ethnography of Communication, New York, 325-345. Schütz, AVLuckmann, T. (1979). Strukturen der Lebenswelt. Bd. 1. Frankfurt. Silverstein, M. (1991), The Indeterminacy of Contextualization: When Is Enough Enough. In: Auer, P./di Luzio, A. (eds.), The Contextualization of Language. Amsterdam, 55-76. Sigonius, C. (1737), De dialogo liber. In: Opera Omnia vol. 6, Milano, 435-438. Stati, S. (1982), Il dialogo. Considerazioni di linguistica pragmatica, Napoli. Toulmin, S. (1958), The Uses of Argument, Cambridge. Vuchinich (1990), The Sequential Organization of Closing in Verbal Family Conflict. In: Grimshaw, A. (ed.), Conflict Talk. Sociolinguistic Investigations of Arguments in Conversations. Cambridge, 118-138. Weber, M. (1913), Über einige Kategorien der verstehenden Soziologie. In: Logos 4, 143-207.

Christian Plantin L'interaction argumentative

1. Situation de la recherche 2. Définitions 2.1 Scripts et sites argumentatifs 2.2 Exemple de script argumentatif 2.3 L'interaction argumentative 2.4 Schéma 3. Présentation de cas 4. Conclusions Références

1. Situation de la recherche A partir des années 50, les études d'argumentation se sont développées comme des „logiques de contenu" („working logjc" de Toulmin (1958, 146f); „informai logic" de Blair/Johnson (1980), logique naturelle de Grize (1982)). On peut voir dans ces développements une pragmatisation du domaine, que l'on retrouverait, par exemple, dans la redéfinition par Ducrot (1973), Anscombre/Ducrot (1983) des études d'argumentation dans le cadre d'une „pragmatique intégrée"; ou dans la „pragmadialectique" de van Eemeren/Grootendorst, qui proposent une „nouvelle dialectique" (1996), contrepartie de la „nouvelle rhétorique" de Perelman/Olbrechts-Tyteca (1958). On peut également estimer qu'il n'y a là que la projection massive dans le champ des études d'argumentation des hétérogénéités et des ambiguïtés du domaine pragmatique, tant il est parfois difficile de construire comme des complémentarités les différences, voire les oppositions, d'objets et de méthodes entre ces différentes constructions du concept d'argumentation. On peut également situer dans le cadre accueillant de la pragmatique les approches de l'argumentation comme une forme d'interaction. Les approches classiques de l'argumentation, rhétorique et dialectique, sont interactives. La première privilégie le rapport de l'orateur au public; la seconde se focalise sur le rapport réglé Proposant/Opposant. Il s'agit, dans les deux cas, d'une interactivité restreinte et conventionnalisée. La rhétorique rejette le contradicteur à l'arrière-plan, la dialectique nie le public tiers. L'adresse rhétorique est planifiée en fonction d'un savoir sur l'auditoire qu'il s'agit d'incliner dans le sens du discours, mais il n'est jamais prévu de retour de parole (on est dans l'ordre du dialogique et non pas du dialogal; cf. Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 1990, 15); dans l'échange dialectique, une norme spécifique vient régler l'alternance des tours de parole: L'entretien dialectique n'est pas une libre conversation, ni une discussion anarchique. L'échange verbal y est pris dans un réseau de conventions et de règles qu'il est très éclairant de concevoir sur le modèle des codes

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institutionnels qui réglementent la pratique d'un sport ou d'un jeu et qui asservissent selon des lignes bien définies le déroulement concret de toute „partie" réelle ou possible. (Brunschwig 1967, xxiii).

D'autre part, certains travaux en argumentation, d'orientation descriptive, prennent en compte les méthodes et les résultats des recherches en analyse conversationnelle. Si on définit la conversation comme „un type particulier d'interaction verbale" caractérisé par la convergence d'une série de critères (immédiateté, familiarité, égalité des participants, absence de finalité de l'échange; cf. KerbratOrecchioni 1990, 114f), alors la question de l'argumentation dans la conversation n'est pas un objet classique pour les théories de l'argumentation. Les premières études dans ce domaine n'apparaissent guère avant les années 80 (Willard 1976, O'Keefe/Benoit 1982, Jacobs/Jackson 1982, etc.), et restent peu nombreuses; elles sont, par exemple, pratiquement absentes des Proceedings of the Third ISSA Conférence on Argumentation (van Eemeren et al. 1995). La question se pose donc de l'articulation du concept d'argument utilisé en analyse conversationnelle et des autres concepts d'argumentation, modernes ou néo-classiques. Partons du mot argument (anglais; dorénavant, argument^). Son sémantisme est complexe, et, par voie de conséquence, sa traduction française parfois délicate. O'Keefe (1977; cf. Plantin 1990, 133f, pour une comparaison avec le français) distingue deux sens de argumentag, argument-] et argument-2 et, corrélativement deux sens du verbe to argue; argument-1 désigne un énoncé fournissant une bonne raison, c'est le sens français de argument; argument-2 désigne une interaction conflictuelle; on traduira par „querelle". L'échange d'injures est un bon exemple à'argument-2 ne contenant pas à'argument-1, et on trouve des exemples, certes limites, où argument-2 désigne une bagarre nonverbale (Plantin 1990, 133). La meilleure traduction globale ne serait donc ni argument ni argumentation, mais bien dispute, porteur de la même ambiguïté sémantique. Dans la théorie des interactions, la notion de „suite préférée" rend compte de l'apparition dans la conversation des arguments-2, arguments-querelles, désignés par le terme argumentsag (sur la notion de suité préférée, cf. Pomerantz 1984; Kerbrat-Orecchioni 1992, 233f). Il y a argumentag lorsqu'un tour de parole est suivi d'une suite „non préférée". Les arguments¡^ sont saisis comme des „troubles in conversation", et définis comme des „disagreement-relevant speech events" ou, d'une façon générale, des „disagreement-relevant expansions of adjacency pairs" (Jacobs/Jackson 1987, 206, 219, 220). Les analyses portent ainsi sur les types d'actes favorisant la manifestation de l'opposition dans la conversation (insultes, accusations, ordres, refus d'accéder à une demande); sur la gestion des faces (Benoit 1982) dans cette situation; sur la gestion de la divergence et sa résolution. Le désaccord étant une menace pour la relation, l'argument^ est un épisode régulateur, au terme duquel cette perturbation disparaît et la relation est „réparée". Pour caractériser ces épisodes d'arguments^ surgissant dans la conversation, on peut proposer le faisceau de repères suivants, évidemment graduels et à prendre dans leur ensemble: a1 les arguments^ surgissent au cours de, au hasard de la conversation; b/ la dispute n'est pas, ou n'est que faiblement, planifiée; d le conflit est „accidentel" par rapport aux buts de l'interaction globale; d/ il n'est pas de prime abord structurant pour cette interaction, même s'il peut donner naissance à une question proliférante, et être le point de départ d'une „histoire" complexe.

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Si l'étude des arguments^ dans la conversation porte notamment sur des événements privés exprimant des divergences mineures, la dispute peut évidemment s'élargir aux dimensions du conflit: le domaine d'étude des arguments,g correspond à l'étude linguistique, psychologique et sociologique des interactions conflictuelles. Les travaux rassemblées par Grimshaw (1990) sous le titre Conflict talk portent le sous-titre caractéristique Sociolinguistic investigations on arguments in conversation. Deux remarques complémentaires: d'une part, les deux textes synthétiques de Grimshaw (1990a, 1990b) ne mentionnent aucune référence classique à propos des „argumentation studies" (alors même que Grimshaw mentionne, pour la regretter, l'absence de référence aux études sociologiques classiques sur le conflit (1990a, 7)). D'autre part, un sondage fait sur les deux articles dont le titre utilise „argument" (Goodwin/Goodwin 1990, Schiffiin 1990) n'utilisent, sauf erreur, jamais le mot argumentation, qui nefigurepas non plus dans les textes de Grimshaw (cf. supra). H semble que l'analyse conversationnelle n'emploie guère argumentation et préfère parler d'argument, alors que les études d'argumentation en anglais utilisent indifféremment les mots de argument, argumentation. On pourrait très schématiquement conclure que les études fondées sur le concept d'argumentation (anglais ou français) et d'argument^ ont chacune leur objet de recherche et se développent de façon autonome dans leurs cadres théoriques propres. Cette opposition serait trop radicale, dans la mesure où le concept d'argument^ est englobant par rapport au concept classique d'argumentation (français ou anglais); l'étude de l'argumentation est une contribution à l'étude de l'argument^; en français, on dira que l'étude de l'argumentation apporte une contribution à l'étude du conflit. Le concept de „suite préférée" établit ainsi le contact entre études interactionistes de l'argument^ et études de l'argumentation. Le concept de négociation, retravaillé par la théorie des interactions verbales, conduit également à une nouvelle réflexion sur l'objet d'étude de l'argumentation. La vision classique (qu'elle soit logique, rhétorique ou dialectique) repose en effet sur l'idée qu'on argumente pour changer les croyances de l'allocutaire (cf supra). A cet effet, on travaille dans un système de propositions (ou de représentations). L'argumentateur croit ou sait que P; il a affaire à une cible ignorante ou mécréante, et cet état de choses ne lui convient pas. L'argumentation est l'ensemble des techniques discursives qui lui permettent de transformer l'état du système propositionnel/représentationnel auquel la cible adhère en un état plus riche ou plus cohérent par introduction de la proposition P. L'analyse conversationnelle s'intéresse aux processus de négociation. Cette problématique suppose qu'au terme de l'argumentation, la conclusion P est elle-même changée, autrement dit, que l'interaction fait subir à la conclusion des transformations radicales et, à priori, imprévisibles. La réflexion sur le processus de persuasion, thème traditionnel de l'argumentation rhétorique, comme celle sur le processus d'inférence, thème traditionnel de l'argumentation logique, peuvent sortir transformées d'une réflexion sur la co-construction des conclusions. Les conclusions ne sont admises ni au vu de la correction d'une inférence (argumentation logique), ni sous l'effet d'une persuasion réussie (argumentation rhétorique), mais elles sont co-construites.

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Le paragraphe qui suit cherche à définir l'argumentativité comme configuration interactive spécifique.

2. Définitions 2.1

Scripts et sites argumentatifs

Il existe des différences cruciales entre le type de micro-conflit (argument^ caractérisé par la rupture de la co-construction conversationnelle et les situations d'argumentation, même si on peut évidemment imaginer toutes les formes de transition entre les ruptures parfois fugaces de la coconstruction conversationnelle, souvent non relevées par les interactants eux-mêmes, et les divisions, parfois millénaires, instaurées par la permanence d'un thème de débat: a/ l'argument^ naît dans l'interaction, alors que le différend de l'argumentation préexiste à l'interaction concrète, et peut être sa raison d'être; b/ l'argumentation suppose l'existence d'un „script argumentatif', c'est-à-dire d'argumentaires précédant la dispute et constituant l'état de la question argumentative; d l'interaction argumentative est planifiée; d/ elle a enfin tendance à s'institutionnaliser, et à s'attacher certains „sites", d'où son caractère essentiellement public. On distingue donc le script et les discours argumentatifs: le script argumentatif préexiste et informe les discours argumentatifs (au sens de „argumentationnels") concrets, dont il constitue un élément déterminant, mais non unique. Il est susceptible d'être actualisé un nombre de fois indéterminé, sur une grande variété de sites. Soit la dispute sur la légalisation de la drogue en France; elle peut être agitée en des lieux aussi divers que le compartiment de métro, la table familiale, le bistrot du coin, la salle polyvalente, la salle du parti où est mise au point la position officielle, l'Assemblée Nationale, la commission des lois, etc.; certains de ces forums sont destinés à l'expression des disputes et ont pouvoir décisionnaire, d'autres non, et visent plutôt l'amplification du débat que sa clôture. Notons que la question cruciale de la charge de la preuve est liée non seulement à l'état de l'opinion générale (la doxa) au moment de la discussion, mais aussi au site où se tient la discussion.

2.2

Exemple de script argumentatif

A la mort de F. Mitterrand, Président de la République Française, en janvier 1996, son médecin personnel, le Dr Gubler, a publié un livre où il „révélait" que son illustre patient était atteint d'un cancer depuis 1982; or, F. Mitterrand avait été élu en 1981. La polémique qui s'est élevée correspondait au script argumentatif suivant: Script de Proposition: - Le docteur Gubler a eu tort de publier son livre sur la santé du président. - En tant que médecin, Gubler est tenu au secret professionnel. - Le secret professionnel n'admet aucune exception; sinon, jusqu'où ira-t-on ? - Le moment était mal choisi, Gubler n'aurait pas dû publier ce livre juste après la mort du Président. - Gubler a agit par dépit. - Gubler a trahi la confiance du Président.

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- . . . de toute façon, tout le monde était au courant... Script d'Opposition: - Mais non, il a eu raison. - Lorsque le patient est mort, le secret médical n'a plus de sens. - Il ne s'agit pas d'un patient ordinaire. - Les gens ont le droit de savoir. - En tant que citoyen, Gubler a le droit de s'exprimer. - Avant son élection, Mitterrand avait pris l'engagement de publier régulièrement son bulletin de santé. - Dans ce cas, la question dépasse celle du secret médical. - Gubler était stressé par le mensonge par omission qui lui était imposé. - ... de toute façon, tout le monde était au courant... Question: - Le docteur Gubler est-il oui ou non blâmable d'avoir publié son livre sur la santé du président?

Ce script argumentatif a été rassemblé à partir des médias et de quelques discussions privées. D est constitué de l'ensemble des lieux communs attachés à la question argumentative, qui forment le squelette de toute discussion sur le thème. Dans une discussion particulière, d'autres arguments apparaîtront, en fonction des circonstances de l'interaction, et étroitement liés aux paroles des interlocuteurs. Les deux scripts, du proposant et de l'opposant ne sont pas seulement antagonistes, ils sont „en contact", via la question; le schéma abstrait du script serait donc „Discours vs Contre-discours —> Question". Les scripts portent la trace des disputes d'où ils tirent leur origine, ils comportent non seulement des arguments, mais aussi bien des éléments de réfutation et de contre-argumentation. On peut s'intéresser à l'histoire des scripts argumentatifs, en particulier, à l'apparition du script à partir d'interventions concrètes.

2.3

L'interaction argumentative

Dans ce qui suit, l'interaction argumentative est définie comme une situation de confrontation discursive au cours de laquelle sont construites des réponses antagonistes à une question. On considère que Pargumentativité est une caractéristique de certaines interactions verbales, régies par des „contrats de communication" particuliers, et une répartition spécifique des rôles discursifs. La situation d'argumentation est une situation tripolaire, à trois actants: Proposant, Opposant, Tiers. A chacun de ces pôles correspond une modalité discursive spécifique, discours de Proposition (soutenu par le Proposant), discours d'Opposition (soutenu par l'Opposant) et discours du Doute ou de la mise en question, définitoire de la position du Tiers. Proposant, Opposant et Tiers sont des actants et non des acteurs physiques. Dans une interaction concrète, le même rôle actanciel peut être tenu par plusieurs acteurs (on parlera alors d'alliance argumentative); le même acteur peut parcourir successivement les trois pôles argumentatifs, par exemple au cours d'un monologue. Inversement, plusieurs acteurs sur une même position argumentative constituent un seul actant.

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Schéma

Le schéma suivant reprend les composantes de la situation argumentative guidée par un script et se déroulant en un site donné: Construction d'une argumentation soutenant le discours de proposition Arg

>

Cond = Réponse = D'l

Réfutation de D'1

Construction d'une contre-argumentation soutenant le discours d'opposition Contre-Arg • Concl = Réponse = D'O

D1 et DO figurent les propositions antagonistes concrètes avancées par les acteurs proposant et opposant), qui engendrent la question Q. Le Proposant avance des arguments (Arg) afin de soutenir sa conclusion (Concl), elle-même proposée en réponse à la question; l'Opposant réfute le Proposant et construit une contre-argumentation, introduisant sa propre conclusion. Ces conclusions D'O et D'1, sont des reformulations argumentées, éventuellement négociées, respectivement des discours (DO) et (Dl). D peut se faire que D'O = D'1, c'est-à-dire que les argumentateurs se mettent d'accord sur une position commune. L'argumentation apparaît ainsi comme un mode de gestion du différend, parmi d'autres. D'une façon générale le différend peut recevoir un traitement non linguistique (élimination physique de l'adversaire, guerre, violence d'état, violence privée; élimination du discours de l'adversaire (censure); tirage au sort pour décider de l'action à suivre; vote...) ou un traitement linguistique (explication, argumentation, palabre...). Les interactions concrètes combinent ces divers instruments. Ce modèle propose une première ébauche des conditions génériques permettant d'approcher le genre argumentatif Ce genre se différencie en plusieurs espèces; certaines sont orientées vers l'expression et l'amplification du différend (débat d'idées, débats politiques...); d'autres vers la résolution du différend (négociations, conciliations, médiations...). Parmi les négociations /conciliations on compte les essais de réconciliation de couple au moment du divorce, les médiations dans les conflits sociaux, les négociations sous l'égide des organisations internationales. Chacune obéit à des contraintes légales ou réglementaires spécifiques.

3. Présentation de cas Ce paragraphe est consacré à la présentation d'une méthode d'analyse argumentative appliquée à une séance d'une Commission de conciliation locataires-propriétaires. Pour des raisons de place, la

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démarche n'est exposée que dans ses grandes lignes, on trouvera le détail et les résultats des analyses dans (1995a, 1995b, 1996b). La description procède comme suit. Les conditions d'énonciation. Deux types de conditions sont examinées: a/ les conditions génériques, qui permettent de caractériser le degré d'argumentativité de l'interaction; b/ les conditions spécifiques, contraintes institutionnelles et contraintes de coutume. Le repérage des occurrences. Les questions, les arguments et les réponses (propositions et contrepropositions) sont réitérés. Ils se modifient dans l'interaction, en particulier sous la pression du contrediscours. L'objet d'étude étant la dynamique de l'argumentation, on commence donc par repérer et étiqueter chaque occurrence de chacun des arguments. La même technique est appliquée aux questions et aux réponses, qui correspondent à l'affirmation des positions des parties. Les questions. On détermine le statut de la question principale (argumentative vs explicative, elle peut faire l'objet d'une négociation). Outre la question principale, on distingue a/ les questionfsj dérivée(s), (questions dont le traitement apparaît comme nécessaire, du point de vue des participants, au traitement de la question principale); b/ les questions non pertinentes pouvant surgir, sans rapport avec la question orientatrice, dites questionfs) déplacée(s), en conservant l'ambiguïté de l'adjectif Les séquences. Le découpage en séquences de l'interaction est opéré sur la base des critères précédents, questions (fournissant le premier découpage), arguments, réponses, proposition de clôture. Les arguments. Ds sont classés d'abord selon la partie qui les propose, et sous-classifiés en fonction de l'objet auquel réfère l'énoncé argument.

4. Conclusions Les analyses argumentatives classiques portent sur de brèves séquences extraites d'un contexte considéré comme argumentativement non-pertinent. La méthode proposée est fondée sur le repérage précis de chaque occurrence de chaque argument, ce qui permet de lui affecter des coefficients „qui" „quand" „combien": par qui est-il avancé, à quel moment de l'interaction est-il introduit, quand est-il répété et par qui. Elle permet de répondre aux objectifs suivants: - La segmentation de l'interaction en séquence argumentatives, sur la base du critère des questions. L'établissement d'une diachronie argumentative. Les questions, les arguments et les réponsesconclusions étant reportées sur la ligne temporelle de l'interaction, on dispose d'une vision analytique du déroulement de l'interaction. Sur cette base sont fondés: - L'analyse des épisodes argumentatifs -L'analyse du destin de chaque argument dans l'interaction: quand apparaît-il, est-il relevé par la partie opposée, fait-il l'objet d'une tentative de réfutation élaborée, disparaît-il, reparaît-il. - Le bilan des argumentations en fonction des parties: qui a avancé quoi, et quand. On peut dresser un tableau des styles argumentatifs des individus, et caractériser leurs stratégies argumentatives (orientées vers l'introduction d'arguments ou bien vers la réfutation, etc.).

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- Les structures des alliances argumentatives. On peut s'appuyer sur ces données globales pour traiter du problème des enjeux officiels et des enjeux cachés de l'interaction. La théorie de l'argumentation n'est pas une théorie de la décision, mais ce type d'analyse rend possible les confrontations et les coordinations avec les approches des mêmes interactions par les psychologues, les sociologues et les spécialistes des études sur la médiation, apportant ainsi une contribution à l'étude du langage du conflit.

Références Anscombre, J.-C./Ducrot, O. (1983), L'argumentation dans la langue, Bruxelles: Mardaga. Bange, P. (1992), Analyse conversationnelle et théorie de l'action, Paris: Hatier/Didier. Benoit, P. J. (1982), Orientation to Face in Everyday Argument. In: van Eemeren, F.H. et al. (eds.), 1987, 3A, 144-152. Benoit, W. L./Benoit, P. J. (1990), Aggravated and Mitigated Opening Utterances. In: Argumentation 4, 2, 171183. Bilmes, J. (1991), Toward a Theory of Argument in Conversation: The Preference for Disagreement. In: F. H. van Eemeren et al. (eds.) (1991), 462-469. Blair, J. A./Johnson, R. H. (1980), Informal Logic. Inverness, Cal.: Edgepress. Brunschwig, J. (1967), Introduction. In: Aristote, Topiques, Paris: Les Belles-Lettres. Charaudeau, P. (1989), Le dispositif socio-communicatif des échanges langagiers. In: Verbum 12, 1, 13-25. Cox, J. R./ Willard, C. A. (eds.) (1987), Advances in Argumentation Theory and Research. Annandale: Southern Illinois University Press. Ducrot, O. (1973), Les échelles argumentatives. In: La preuve et le dire, Paris: Marne, 225-285. van Eemeren, F. H./Grootendorst, R. (1996), La nouvelle dialectique (Trad, de l'anglais Argumentation, Communication, Fallacies. Lawrence Erlbaum, 1992), Paris: Kimé. van Eemeren, F. H./Grootendorst, R./Jackson, S./Jacobs, S., 1993, Reconstructing Argumentative Discourse, Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. van Eemeren, F./Grootendorst, R./Blair, J.A./Willard, C.A. (1987), Proceedings of the Conference on Argumentation 1986, (3A) Argumentation: Perspectives and approaches, Dordrecht: Foris. van Eemeren, F./Grootendorst, R./Blair, J.A./Willard, C.A. (1991), Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Argumentation, Amsterdam: SICSAT. 2 vol. van Eemeren, F./Grootendorst, R./Blair, J. A./Willard, C. A. (1995), Proceedings of the Third ISSA Conference on Argumentation, Amsterdam: SICSAT. 5 vol. Goodwin, C./Goodwin, M. H. (1990), Interstitial Argument. In: Grimshaw, A. D. (1990), 85-117. Grimshaw, A. D. (ed.) (1990) Conflict Talk - Sociolinguistic Investigations on Arguments in Conversation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Grize, J.-B. (1982), De la logique à l'argumentation, Genève: Droz. Heritage, J./Atkinson, J. M. (1984), Structure of Social Action - Studies in Conversation Analysis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jacobs, S./Jackson, S. (1987), Conversational Argument: A discourse Analytic Approach. In: Cox, J. R./Willard, C. A., (eds.) 1987, 205-237. Kerbrat-Orecchioni, C. (1990), Les interactions verbales, 1.1, Paris: A. Colin. Kerbrat-Orecchioni, C. (1992), Les interactions verbales, t. II, Paris: A. Colin. Kerbrat-Orecchioni, C. (1994), Les interactions verbales, t. III, Paris: A. Colin. Kerbrat-Orecchioni, C./Plantin, C. (eds.) (1995) LeTrilogue, Lyon: PUL. O'Keefe, D. J. (1977) Two Concepts of Argument and Arguing. In: Journal of the American Forensic Association 13, 121-128. Repris In: Cox, J. R./Willard, C. A. (eds.), 3-23. O'Keefe, B. J./Benoit, P. J. (1982) Children's Argument. In: Cox, J. R./Willard, C. A., (eds.), 205-237.

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Perelman, Ch./Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1958), Traité de l'argumentation - La nouvelle rhétorique. 3e éd. (1970), Bruxelles: Editions de l'Université de Bruxelles. Plantin, C. (1990), Essais sur l'argumentation, Paris: Kimé. Plantin, C. (1995a), Fonctions du tiers. In: Kerb rat-Orecchioni, C./Plantin, C. (eds.), 108-133. Plantin, C. (1995b), Recherches sur l'interaction argumentative, Synthèse pour l'habilitation à diriger les recherches, Lyon, Université Lyon 2. Plantin, C. (1996a), L'Argumentation, Paris: Le Seuil. Plantin, C. (1996b), Le trilogue argumentatif. In: Langue française 112, 9-30. Pomerantz, A., Agreeing and Disagreeing with Assessments: Some Features of Preferred/Disprefered Turn Shapes. In: Heritage, J./Atkinson, J. M. (1984), 57-101. Schiffrin, D., The Management of a Cooperative Self during Argument: The Role of Opinions and Stories. In: Grimshaw, A. D. (ed.) (1990), 241-259. Toulmin, S. E. (1958), The Uses of Argument, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Touzard, H. (1977), La Médiation et la résolution des conflits, Paris: PUF. Woods, J., Walton, D. (1992), Critique de l'argumentation, Paris: Kimé. Willard, C. A. (1976), On the Utility of Descriptive Diagrams for the Analysis and Criticism of Argument. In: Communication Monographs 43, 308-319. Cité (p. 125) par R. Trapp, 1990, The Empirical Study of Argumentation, Argumentation 4, 2, 125-128.

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1. La notion de mise en pertinence par rapport aux structures nominales 2. Application: analyse d'un texte manipulatif 2.1 Structure globale du texte 2.2 Les fonctions dans la séquence 2.3 Les substantifs utilisés 2.4 Les traits sémantiques mis en pertinence 3. Conclusion Notes Références

1. La notion de mise en pertinence par rapport aux structures nominales Considérée comme l'une des opérations' que le locuteur utilise pour construire la sémantique textuelle, la mise en pertinence est un procédé qui permet l'expression de l'intention du locuteur et le passage du niveau langue à l'acte de parole. Nous adopterons dans notre étude une perspective pragma-linguistique et l'hypothèse que la langue - le code - offre au locuteur des possibilités, des instruments, qu'il modèle pour former le sens et le texte. Nous examinerons ensuite comment ce procédé fonctionne et comment il est possible de saisir la „notion apparemment insaisissable qui est celle de l'intention" comme l'affirme Arcaini (1994, 438) en analysant concrètement les procédés de formation du texte et les structures nominales, dans un article publié en Italie en 1956 par le journal qui était l'organe de presse du Parti Communiste et qui présente la Justification officielle" de la répression soviétique du mouvement de libération hongrois. Par rapport au sens global du texte, la mise en pertinence consiste à choisir les arguments qui vont former le texte et à leur donner une certaine signification grâce à la perspective. En effet, on parle normalement de ce qui est le plus important et parler d'un sujet présuppose qu'il soit digne d'attention:2 c'est ce qui se passe dans Animal Farm (1945) de George Orwell, quand Napoléon fait organiser pour les animaux parades, fêtes, chants et discours „spontanés" sur la liberté; de cette manière, ils oublient que leur condition est égale ou pire qu'auparavant.3 La mise en pertinence intervient aussi pour justifier la manière de ranger les éléments choisis, à l'intérieur des séquences textuelles," dans le rôle de thème,5 rhème, transition, présupposé. Cette disposition fonctionnelle dépend logiquement de la fonction globale du texte et correspond à la thématisation (et en général à l'organisation de l'énoncé). Un tel procédé, naturel et correct, dérive de la notion d'intérêt: parler de présuppose et manifeste l'intérêt commun du locuteur et du destinataire pour le sujet mis en thème et donc son importance. Ce procédé devient une voie

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de manipulation lorsqu'il mène à poser en arrière-plan, et même à effacer du texte, des aspects de la situation qui sont essentiels pour signifier et comprendre la chose/situation/donnée dont on parle. En analysant la composition des noms insérés dans des syntagmes nominaux, il est aussi possible de reconnaître la mise en pertinence de chacun des traits sémantiques et de comprendre quels traits ont été considérés pertinents pour l'argumentation. Chaïm Perelman parle surtout des qualifications faites par l'emploi des épithètes et il cite le passage bien connu de la Rhétorique où Aristote souligne la différence d'effet obtenu en qualifiant Oreste de „meurtrier de sa mère" plutôt que de „vengeur de son père". Perelman commente: „Ce choix est rarement dépourvu d'intention argumentative" (1958, §32)6. Mais la racine du pouvoir argumentatif du nom et des structures nominales est cachée dans la capacité du nom d'évoquer la substance, le présupposé d'existence. Toute la tradition de la grammaire ancienne étudie la classe de mots nom à partir de ce rapport7 et souligne que nomen signifîcat substantiam cum qualitate. C'est pourquoi il est possible (et normal: on peut penser par exemple à la publicité) d'amener le destinataire à confondre le détail particulier avec la totalité de la chose signifiée8. Le locuteur rend donc pertinents les détails qui sont à son avis les plus significatifs,9 et, comme bien évidemment il n'est pas possible de dire la totalité ou de la signifier,10 il peut avertir le destinataire qu'il s'agit d'un détail particulier et le lui rappeler". Si la partialité acquise par la signification est au contraire dissimulée au destinataire, justement dans le but de cacher la totalité, on manipule sa compréhension. La limite de la manipulation possible consiste dans la vraisemblance,12 qui peut de toute façon se situer très loin des limites du vrai.

2. Application: analyse d'un texte manipulatif L'article, objet de notre analyse, a été publié le 11 novembre 1956 par L'Unità". Dans cet article Roberto Battaglia, membre de la Commission Culturelle Nationale du Comité Central, donne la position officielle du Parti à propos des faits qui se sont passés en Hongrie: la répression par les Russes des tentatives de libération, à la fin du mois d'octobre, à Budapest. L'argumentation globale du texte est - en très peu de mots - la suivante: [connectif logique]14 la finalité ne peut pas être changée; la finalité justifie les moyens; [présupposé] le communisme est la finalité. C'est à partir du communisme et de ses implications qu'il faut juger les idées et l'action politique; et nous n'allons pas changer notre jugement, pour ne pas être obligés de changer nous-mêmes; [thème] les événements de Hongrie; [rhème] on confirme que tout va bien. C'est une structure argumentative très rassurante: le point de départ est déjà connu et le point d'arrivée ne peut que le confirmer.

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Structure globale du texte

En appliquant le processus de formation de texte que nous avons dénommé mise en pertinence, il est possible d'en retrouver 4 niveaux différents. Au niveau de la macro-structure textuelle, l'auteur utilise le procédé que nous proposons d'appeler parler de. Il rend pertinent, pour le lecteur, des choses et des aspects des faits qui ne sont pas les plus importants, pour que l'attention du public soit occupée et satisfaite, sans que les questions les plus urgentes aient été touchées. Les questions soulevées par le texte sont résolues, mais en refléchissant sur la situation, il serait possible et peut-être plus raisonnable d'en poser d'autres, qui pourraient amener des réponses et un encadrement des faits carrément différents et même opposés. Par exemple: (1) le jugement des faits de Hongrie se situe dans un débat déjà commencé dans le Parti: il n'y a donc rien de nouveau; (2) on souligne que le problème principal est la question de la justification idéologique de ce qui vient de se passer - et donc (au premier plan) le tourment que cette justification implique; (3) le journaliste fait une longue parenthèse à propos du rôle des intellectuels, de leur travail et de la culture d'évasion, qui n'a rien à voir avec le sujet de l'article et qui a une fonction évidente de dépistage par rapport au thème; (4) on parle du „problème essentiel", qui consisterait dans le fait qu'un mouvement révolutionnaire comme celui de Budapest, contraire à un état communiste, ne peut que comporter le danger presque sûr de la contre-révolution. A partir du présupposé que la contrerévolution est le pire des maux, le mouvement de Budapest devait être réprimé; (5) le centre de la réalité est la nuda realtà di classe, „réalité totale de classe", à partir de laquelle il faut tout considérer; (6) le noyau dur de la mise en pertinence est constitué par le présupposé que „tous les autres" sont fascistes, ennemis, dangereux; tertium non datur: donc il faut les combattre (le sens d'appartenance est très fort et exprimé par le nous)-, (7) le choix entre la liberté de la Hongrie et l'intervention soviétique doit être substitué par le choix entre l'intervention soviétique et le retour du fascisme en Hongrie (de nouveau le tertium non datur est présupposé); voilà LE problème (implication: tous les autres ne sont ni importants ni intéressants); (8) on concentre l'attention sur la question de l'agression de l'Egypte par l'aviation anglaise et française; (9) on souligne que toute discussion politique actuelle à l'extérieur du parti vise essentiellement à la rupture de l'unité de la classe ouvrière. L'argumentation du texte s'appuie fréquemment aux dérivés du mot justice, pour conclure comment on le verra - par la justesse de la position de la direction du Parti.

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Les fonctions dans la séquence

Au niveau des fonctions dans la séquence, le procédé de mise en pertinence est régulièrement utilisé pour la thématisation du présupposé, qui est presque toujours exprimé dans les énoncés, en dernière position, avec la fonction de thème (ou bien de transition thématique). Comme dans le dialogue, on définit „présupposé" ce qui est partagé par le sujet parlant et les interlocuteurs, sans lequel l'énoncé n'aurait pas de sens, la présence explicite du présupposé oriente les lecteurs vers une seule direction d'interprétation du texte15. La fonction du texte est donc exactement de justifier ce qui vient de se passer en Hongrie à la lumière des principes du communisme, ces principes mêmes étant exprimés pour que l'interprétation des faits soit simple et univoque. Il n'y a pas de monde et d'„encyclopédie" normalement préexistant au texte. On rapelle de façon continue au lecteur que le signifié des événements est celui-là (d'où l'implication qu'il n'y en a pas d'autres, car entre tous les présupposés possibles, on a déjà dit lequel il faut choisir). Dans d'autres cas, le présupposé est exprimé dans une proposition incidente; on le fait passer comme un fait marginal et certain à la fois. Par exemple: (1) le doute angoissant: fidélité aux principes de l'idéologie et à son internationalisme ou bien recherche d'une voie „nationale" au communisme? Mais le problème n'existe pas à l'extérieur, il est seulement à l'intérieur de nous, dans chacun de „nous", dans chacun des militants du Parti; (2) le danger de la contre-révolution est impliqué par l'expression du présupposé que le gouvernement de Hongrie garantissait l'existence des „bases structurales" du socialisme, la réforme agraire et la nationalisation des usines. L'argumentation exprime d'abord la centralité de la question de principe (contre-révolution = danger proche du fascisme); deuxièmement, le thème, c'est-à-dire le mouvement du peuple armé; ensuite, en passant, le présupposé qu'on vient de dire; enfin le rhème qui pose le lien entre le thème et le présupposé; à strictement parler, le rhème n'ajoute rien, il ne sert qu'à confirmer que la situation dont il est question rentre dans le présupposé.

2.3

Les substantifs utilisés

Le troisième niveau de mise en pertinence se rapporte aux substantifs utilisés, qui sont souvent des nominalisations de prédicats, surtout quand ils expriment le présupposé. Grâce à l'effet d'existence réelle véhiculé par la classe de mots nom, l'emploi aussi fréquent de substantifs construits dans des syntagmes nominaux définis provoque l'effet que le texte paraisse très vrai et que le lecteur ne soit pas tenté de discuter ce qu'il lit. Par exemple: la difficulté de notre jugement; la complexité des faits; la nature même (des intellectuels) ou bien leur fonction spécifique de „producteurs de culture"; la certitude et la clarté de l'idéologie; l'existence même des bases du socialisme; la réalité totale de classe; la clarté du jugement; la

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leçon des faits; l'inévitable dureté de cette position; le barrage compact de la réaction; la certitude foncière d'être du côté juste de la barricade (etc.).

2.4

Les traits sémantiques mis en pertinence

On va voir maintenant le sens le plus spécifique de la mise en pertinence-procédé de formation du texte, par rapport aux signifiés contenus dans les mots langue et leur disposition textuelle dans les mots parole. On donnera de brefs extraits du texte pour l'analyse des traits sémantiques16 du substantif et on verra brièvement quels traits ont été mis en pertinence grâce au contexte. On va donner pour chaque exemple, d'abord, la traduction française du texte; tout de suite l'original italien (entre parenthèses); ensuite la description de la fonction textuelle du substantif [entre crochets]; ensuite la représentation graphique des traits sémantiques du nom inséré dans le syntagme; finalement la déscription du procédé de mise en pertinence utilisé. Les termes soulignés le sont par nous. (1) „[...] en se détournant des objectifs permanents et fixés de la révolution prolétarienne." (Una vera e propria deviazione [lo stalinismo] che tutto il movimento, l'U.R.S.S. e i Partiti comunisti partecipi dello stesso processo, avrebbero subito distogliendosi dagli obiettivi permanenti e stabili della rivoluzione proletaria.) [présupposé - thème]

Les adjectifs permanents et fixés soulignent les sèmes de l'engagement pour atteindre le but, tandis que prolétarienne souligne que (à partir du présupposé)^ est bien pour x et l'article défini souligne le présupposé qu'il n'y a pas d'autres buts; liberté et amour sont laissés du côté, le présupposé d'existence est ainsi donné sans qu'on le remarque; (2) „[...] et le centre est le coeur même du Parti, notre fidélité de militants de l'avant-garde de la classe ouvrière." (e „il centro" è il cuore stesso del Partito, la nostra fedeltà di militanti dell'avanguardia della classe operaia.) [présupposé - transition thématique]

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. — ° 'rester lié'

__—

'pour toujours' 'volontairement'

'bien' °

Dans ce cas, la pertinence ouvre sur les traits pour toujours et le lien entre x et y. La fidélité ne peut jamais être mise en discussion; s'il est fatigant d'être fidèle, cela rend la fidélité plus belle, plus digne de respect et d'admiration. Le texte survole .y, volontairement, le bien pour x, qui sont présupposés et concourent à la constitution de la structure sémantique du texte sans que le lecteur s'en rende compte; (3) „[...] de la reconnaissance constante de la présence de l'adversaire dans chaque événement de notre histoire et de l'histoire du monde." ([...] ma guai a dimenticare [...] la necessità di prendere posizione da una parte precisa della barricata, la posizione che deriva dalla nostra concezione della lotta di classe, dal riconoscimento costante della presenza dell 'avversario in ogni evento della nostra storia e della storia del mondo.) [présupposé - thème] 'exister'

o

° 'attester'

La conjonction de reconnaissance avec constante rend pertinent l'existence de y, la racine substantielle de la connaissance et de la croyance. De même pour la présence, l'adversaire est toujours présent: présupposé, il existe. (4) ..Fait pénible où se manifeste la faiblesse extrême, chaîne fatale d'erreurs [...]" (.Fatto doloroso in cui si manifesta l'estrema debolezza, la catena fatale d'errori da cui non si è saputo sciogliere il gruppo dirigente ungherese [...]) [présupposé - thème]

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0

se passer

'tout le monde' ° 'souffrir'

causer La transition thématique qui suit concentre l'attention sur la souffrance partagée par tous, en cachant qu'aucun substitué ne correspond, dans le texte qui précède, à ce substituant nominal: on parle bien sûr de x qui s'estpassé, mais on ne sait pas ce qui s'est passé. (5) „[•••] placer les troupes soviétiques au niveau de n'importe quelles troupes étrangères, ignorer leur nature d'expression armée de premier État socialiste du monde [...]" (Ma da qui, dalla questione politica [...], al porre la questione di principio, ad allineare le truppe sovietiche sul piano di qualsiasi truppe straniere [sic], ad ignorare la loro natura di espressione armata di primo Stato socialista del mondo, ci corre un abisso che non può essere valicato da nessun militante della classe operaia fedele ai principi [.,.]) [transition thématique+thème présupposé] 'visible' ? 'montrer'

/

'caché'

'se montrer par'

Ce que l'on comprend d'après le texte est que les troupes (visibles) devraient en principe montrer unj' caché qui se manifeste par elles. Mais en réalité, on ne voit rien du tout. Que veut dire alors le mot expression ici?

3. Conclusion Nous nous sommes proposés d'analyser la notion de mise en pertinence, suivant la description de 4 niveaux: la structure macro-textuelle, les fonctions dans la séquence, les syntagmes nominaux, les traits sémantiques des substantifs. C'est sur ce point que nous terminerons, par ce dernier exemple, la justice du Parti devenue justesse: „L'aggravation du péril de la troisième guerre mondiale, l'explosion de la ,croisade' anticommuniste en Italie, destinés essentiellement à briser l'unité de la classe ouvrière [en passant présupposé], confirment [rhème] la justesse de la position de la Direction du P.C.I. [thème -

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présupposé] (L'aggravarsi del pericolo della terza guerra mondiale, lo sfrenarsi della „crociata" anticomunista in Italia, rivolte essenzialmente a spezzare l'unità della classe operaia, confermano la giustezza della posizione della Direzione del P.C.I.)

'mesurable' 'exactement' 'égal'

2 'mesurable'

La position du Parti est donc exacte, on dirait presque juste, comme le son même du mot le suggère et comme les faits le confirment. Mais en italien, le mot justesse est utilisé pour indiquer la longueur typographique d'une ligne. L'évocation de la justice reste alors seulement phonétique, comme on peut le constater aussi en analysant les traits sémantiques de ce mot, où chacun des traits peut être défini juste, selon l'ancienne notion aristotélicienne d'analogie d'attribution:

Dans le texte que l'on vient de présenter, le mot est mis en pertinence pour les traits de la mesure exacte et a la fonction de souligner, une dernière fois, le présupposé. C'est comme si le Parti disait: comme vous le voyez, nous avions raison; de toute façon c'était prévisible, étant donné que nous avons toujours raison.

Notes 1. Cfr. Rigotti (1990a, 200 et suivantes). Le linguiste parle de six „procédés de textualisation": synthème, énoncés liés, désambigiiisation, détermination (ou spécification), quantification, mise en pertinence. 2. „Le fait de sélectionner certains éléments et de les présenter à l'auditoire, implique déjà leur importance et leur pertinence dans le débat" disaient Chaîm Perelman et Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca (1958, § 29). L'oeuvre d'Elisabeth Gülich et Wolfgang Raible Linguistische Textmodelle (1977, 71) rappelle l'étude de Daneä sur l'organisation: „Auf der Ebene der Organisation der Äußerung werden die sprachlichen Einheiten unter

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kommunikativen Aspekten betrachtet. Daneä bezeichnet diese Ebene auch als die Ebene der „thematischen und kontextuellen Organisation" (1967, 500). Das Prinzip der Organisation der Äußerung ist das der funktionalen Satzperspektive; [...] auf der Ebene der Organisation der Äußerung [besteht der Satz] aus Thema und Rhema". 3. Voir le chapitre 9 et passim. 4. Cette notion, introduite par Eddo Rigotti (1993, 43-148), permet d'ailleurs de résoudre le problème de la segmentation des séquences discoursives posé par Jean-Jacque Courtine (1981, 38). 5. Le thème n'est pas considéré ici comme une structure syntaxique, mais plutôt comme une fonction textuelle qui peut être remplie par des structures sintaxiques différentes. 6. Voir aussi la comparaison entre rhétorique classique et néo-rhétorique par Manuela Cervi, Neo-retorica e retorica antica (1995, 57-76). 7. Voir, par exemple, Louis Holtz, Les parties du discours vues par les latins (1994, 73-92). L'auteur qui parle avec le plus de conscience et de profondeur de ce problème est sans aucune doute Priscien, qui écrit dans ses Institutions grammaticales à propos de „significare substantiam" comme l'une ou bien la principale des qualités de la signification du substantif. Pour reconnaître les parties du discours, il faut examiner les proprietates significationum. On verra alors que la partie nom a la propriété de signifier la substance. Voir Priscien, Institutionum grammaticarum l. XVIII, pp. 55 et suivantes; voir aussi notre „Congruitas" e „perfectio " nella Summa Gramatica di Ruggero Bacone: una rilettura linguistica (1993, 501). 8. Dans cette perspective il ne s'agit pas d'ambiguïté sémantique et on peut proposer une interprétation strictement linguistique du phénomène d'„illusion de transparence" dénoncé par Courtine (1981, 81). 9. Un exemple du langage oral, au téléphone: -Ah, c'est toi. Tu sais, je pouvais même être morte.../- Quoi?/— Mais oui, pendant le fait que tu ne m'appelais pas... (dans ce cas-là, la nominalisation le fait que a la fonction de „substantiver" ime période temporelle sous une perspective particulière). 10. Voir St.Thomas d'Aquin, Summa Theologiae, I, q. 50, a. 2, respondeo. 11. C'est le cas de l'éducation: on indique aux enfants des détails significatifs et - peu à peu - on les conduit à se rendre compte de la totalité dans laquelle ils sont insérés. Voir Rigotti (1990b). Mais le droit à ne pas être trompé - comme tous les droits - consiste d'abord à chercher activement la vérité, non à attendre de la recevoir des autres. 12. On peut voir à ce propos Bettetini/Fumagalli (1995), qui présente une analyse très intéressante de Veikós aristotélicien. 13 / fatti di Ungheria e la lotta su due fronti del nostro Partito, page 8. 14. Voir Rigotti (1993), surtout aux pages 54 et suivantes. 15. Ce procédé décrit de façon différente ce qui est dit par Courtine (aux pages 35-36 de l'article cité): on parle là de l'analyse syntaxique du discours, ici des fonctions dans la séquence textuelle; par exemple la relative a souvent la fonction textuelle d'exprimer le présupposé, mais il n'est pas possible d'identifier tout court les deux structure (syntaxique la première, sémantique-argumentative la seconde). 16. On fait référence aux „représentations sémantiques" introduites par Igor Mel'chuk et présentées par M.C. Gatti (1992, 117 et suivantes).

Références Arcaini, E. (1994), Sens et référence: figement et dynamisme comme phénomènes culturels. In: SILTA 23/3, 423455. Bettetini, G./Fumagalli, A. (1995), Verità e comunicazione di massa. In: Il nuovo Areopago 14/1, 15-42. Cervi, M. (1995), Neo-retorica e retorica antica. In: Il nuovo Areopago 14/1, 57-76. Cigada, S. (1993), „Congruitas" e „perfectio" nella Summa Gramatica di Ruggero Bacone: una rilettura linguistica. In: L'Analisi linguistica e letteraria I, 485-519. Courtine, J.-J. (1981), Quelques problèmes théoriques et méthodologiques en analyse du discours, à propos du discours communiste adressé aux chrétiens. In: Langages XVI, 62, 9-128. Holtz, L. (1994), Les parties du discours vues par les latins. In: Basset, L./Pérennec, M. (eds.), Les classes de mots. Tradition et perspectives, Lyon, 73-92.

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Gatti, M.C. (1992), Dalla semantica alla lessicologia. Introduzione al modello SensoTesto di I.A. Mel'chuk, Brescia. Giilich, E./Raible, W. (1977), Linguistische Textmodelle, München. Perelman, Ch./Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1958), Traité de l'Argumentation, Paris. Priscien, Institutionum grammaticarum 1. XVIII, H. Keil éd., tomes 1-2, Leipzig (1855-1859). Rigotti, E. (1990a), Linguistica generale. Appunti del corso, Milano. Rigotti, E. (1990b), Denominarsi per esserci. In: Synesis 7/1, 29-38. Rigotti, E. (1993), La sequenza testuale: definizione e procedimenti di analisi con esemplificazioni in lingue diverse. In: L'Analisi linguistica e letteraria I, 43-148. St.Thomas d'Aquin, Summa Theologiae, P. T.S. Centi O.P. éd., 1964 („La Somma Teologica", IV).

Andrea Cristina Ghita

Dialogic Aspects of Lying

1. As-if acting: how universal pragmatics theoretically legitimates lying 1.1 Speech act theory 1.2 Interpersonal rhetoric and as-if acting 2. Grice's Quality Maxim revisited 3. Irony, as-if acting and lying 4. Towards a definition of lying 5. A cross-examination of lying in literary dialogues 5.1 Speaker-oriented metacommunicative strategies: prospective and retrospective comments 5.2 Hearer-oriented metacommunicative strategies 5.3 Inculpations and exculpations of lying 5.4 Lying as a projection 6. Instead of conclusions References Literary sources

1. As-if acting: how universal pragmatics theoretically legitimates lying 1.1 Speech act theory A specific thesis embraced by all pragmatic theorists in linguistics says that language is action, consequently meaning that speaking a language presupposes performing acts according to rules; speech acts are characteristically performed by uttering expressions in accordance with these constitutive rules. The accepted conventional procedure includes a series of conditions referring to the uttering of certain words by certain persons in certain circumstances. These conditions must be ideally satisfied for literally and non-defectively performing an act (Searle^peech Acts 1969). One of the conditions - the sincerity condition - (also acknowledged by Austin 1962) says that a speaker must have the appropriate psychological state for performing an act, when speaker intends to do the act. It is also mentioned that an insincere act where speaker does not intend to do the act is an abuse (Searle, Speech Acts, 1969). At the same time there is a strange remark evaluating those situations where this or the other conditions fail to obtain: the act may be misinvoked (prepositional content condition), misexecuted (preparatory condition) or infelicitous (sincerity condition). The act is clearly not true or false, not even void (Austin 1962), but just unhappily performed. Following Austin and Searle's theory on speech acts, Bach/Harnish (1979) have created a detailed taxonomy of illocutionary acts. Their premise is that illocutions are distinguished by types of illocutionary intentions, which roughly corresponds to types of expressed attitudes. To

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express an attitude in uttering something is to intend that the hearer take one's utterance as reason to believe that one has that attitude. Bach/Harnish (1979) notice that a speaker need not have the expressed attitude and hearer need not form a corresponding attitude, but communication proceeds as if such were the case: the speaker's actually having the attitude expressed is the mark of sincerity, but illocutionary or communicative success does not require sincerity.

1.2 Interpersonal rhetoric and as-if acting Other pragmatic approaches lay an even stronger emphasis on pretending - acting insincerely as strategic behaviour in a talk-exchange. Brown/Levinson (1978, 118-122) include white lies under Strategy 6 of positive politeness - avoid disagreement (together with token agreement, pseudo-agreement and hedging opinions). Leech (1983, 81-83) investigates the interpersonal rhetoric, namely the „trade-off" relationship between the cooperative principle and the politeness principle, as both are required to account for pragmatic interpretation. He notices that „there are situations where the PP can overrule the CP to the extent that even the Maxim of Quality (which tends to outweigh other cooperative maxims) is sacrified. That is, in certain circumstances, people feel justified in telling white lies in order to protect themselves and their public image".

2. Grice's Quality Maxim revisited This maxim specifies the truthful way in which speakers must ideally cooperate in a talkexchange: a) „Do not say what you believe to be false" b) „Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence." The requirement to tell the truth might, indeed, be regarded as a moral imperative, but the reason for including it in a scientific account of language is descriptive rather prescriptive (Leech 1983, 9). The cooperative principle assumes speaker's commitment to tell the truth. If one violated the Quality maxim or some other maxims, there is no doubt that the situation is non-cooperative; but it is not true that this definitely nullifies both implicatures and the non-conversational entailments (presuppositions, for instance). In reality even when one knows that one is being lied to, one still tries to extract as much information as possible from the situation. That is why most of Grice's discussion is dedicated to ways to „trick" the maxims in order to get meaning across. Even Grice reviewed a number of attitudes a speaker could hold towards the cooperative principle: a speaker could fulfil the maxims, violate them, flout or exploit them, opt out of them, or be faced with a clash between two maxims.

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3. Irony, as-if acting and lying The Quality Maxim cannot exclusively explain lying as a punishable abuse in a verbal interaction, because there are many situations where one may fail to observe it, without being „morally" untruthful, but „conversationally" truthful (this holds for the other maxims, too). In the case of irony and as-if acting the Quality Maxim is actually exploited. As to lying or deceit, the maxim is profoundly violated, but there is no warranty that the hearer knows it. All the three situations mentioned above are generally described together by linguists, as all express something different from or even opposite to the literal meaning. All involve a certain sort of contrast between what is said and what is implicated, between a pretended saying and what is implicated by the pretence. The idea of pragmatic sharedness seems to differentiate the three situations: a) Irony - according to Grice (1975, 53), the apparent violation of a maxim is involved in irony. Irony as an implicature can be worked out inasmuch „It is perfectly obvious to A and his audience that what A has said or has made as if to say is something he does not believe, and the audience knows that. A knows that this is obvious to the audience." So what speaker says is (more or less) clearly not true. The speaker intends his partner to identify and correctly follow a non-standard path in understanding his meaning, providing him pragmatically with clues of ironic interpretation. A person who is being ironic appears to be deceiving or misleading the hearer, but in fact is indulging in an „honest" form of apparent deception, at the expense of politeness (Leech 1983, 83). b) As-if acting - characterizes a situation where the participants in a verbal exchange tolerate social lies for reasons of politeness or of communicative meaning. The participants must share the lack of interest in the content of the utterance. Our social life is full of situations where certain utterances have to be performed and answered even when it is shared by the agents that neither of them is really interested in the conversation. c) Lying or deceit - according to Airenti et al. (1993, 314-316), when the actor uses this possibility of misunderstanding about sharedness to pursue his own private goals, we have an attempted deceit. This is the attempt to communicate a mental state which is not actually entertained (the same as in irony); but unlike irony, this is exclusively or privately known by the speaker, while the hearer is victimized. An ironic utterance or an as-if statement of politeness is spontaneously and mutually identified as conventionally and literally false, while a lie, if successfully performed, passes for true in the on-going utterance. It may be further violently disclosed, but for the time being of the verbal exchange it is insincere only from a behavioural point of view. „Deceit does not involve any special way of communicating, but rather concerns the relationship between what the actor communicates and his private mental states" (Airenti, 1993). As we have already shown in a previous chapter, pragmatics is not interested in the real mental states or attitudes of speakers. Communication is a rule-governed behaviour invulnerable to sincerity and moral correctness, as mental primitives. These ideas would contradict the essence

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of pragmatism. The pragmatic commitment to truth is only a formal universal tenet of (verbal) communication.

4. Towards a definition of lying In order to define lying, we certainly need accessing to philosophies of action, mind and responsibility These can provide us with an account of the mental element implied in lying as a linguistic communicative act. A lie is inherently verbal and mental at the same time. It needs a mental design, some planning beforehand and on purpose. This is the mental in-text which perversely contrasts with the out-text of the surface utterance. In lying there is a conflict or at least a disparity between speech (what you say) and thought (what you illicitly have on your mind),

particularly

defined

as

mutually

exclusive

categories,

with

different

textual

representations. The lying thought or intention is discursive, but private, non-communicative and semi-verbal. You need to say something in order to lie to someone; a lie cannot be completely internalized. It is open to question whether a lie is exclusively verbal. Generally one tells a lie, but are there non-verbal means of achieving a perlocutionary effect corresponding to lying? (1)

„Bodice (aside). I'm not disappointed in ray husband. I expected nothing. There is some satisfaction in listening to him squeak on top of me while he whines, you'll pay for this, my lad. He sees me smiling and contended and thinks it's his virility. Virility! [...]" (Bond,1989, 24, Lear)

A lie is a kind of harmful action which presumes an agent. Being essentially agentive in nature (that's why it is an infraction and is punishable), a lie can never happen accidentally. In the vocabulary of lying conduct there are terms designating the idea of agency and minding: intention, will, deliberation, purpose, and their corresponding „moral adverbs": intentionally, wilfully, deliberately, purposefully. These terms may serve to aggravate or assign responsibility and culpability when a lie is disclosed. We must notice the incongruity of configurations like: ,,X cheated accidentally" or ,,X lied unintentionally" where the verb to lie sits definitely uncomfortably with accidentally adverbs. Although it is a speech act verb, to lie cannot be used performatively. An utterance like „1 lie to you that" is misconceived. The reasons for that are not so much grammatical as pragmatic, a self-naming or self-reporting utterance referring to the speech activity will disclose the lie both inefficiently and impolitely, invalidating it. The metalanguage speech act verb to lie may be used only to describe somebody's discourse, not to perform the speaker's action of lying (nonperformative use). Speech acts in natural or literary dialogues can generally be regarded as intentional acts performed by a dialogue participant to influence the relevant aspects of the mental state of a recipient. Unlike these acts, where there is a problem of the speaker's intention recognition, lying presupposes an opaque intention, not to be disclosed. The contextual dependencies of the

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deceitful utterance are incorporated to determine the surface function or intention, upon which lying is parasitic. If we were to make up a typology of conversational lies, then we must exclude the pathological lies, the manipulations of the media and lying as an ideological institution of totalitarian societies or dictatorships. In ordinary dialogues we may come across lying as: a) a face-to-face pervert intention, verbally performed at the expense of the hearer; b) a report - distorting somebody else's words or matching them in an inappropriate context; c) an intentional silence - as a way of being economical with truth - by repressing the words in order to conceal what you know; a deceitful silence may be glossed or interpreted deontically as „1 will not", „1 may not" or „1 must not" speak (Kurzon 1995, 63). Most of the times people commit themselves to keeping silent because some outside sources of authority have power over them: (2)

„James.(...) Shall I tell them I'm your brother? Any harm in that? Joyce. If you do, or if you cause any trouble and draw attention I'll have you dead and over the side (.. .) James. I'll keep my mouth shut." (Plays 38,1970, 37 - Hale, Spithead)

It is open to question whether this is actually a lie, since the silent person is faithful to some authority and the responsibility of the lie is thus shared. Attempting to remain silent in face of interrogation involves responsibility and the evil intention of keeping the other in the dark.

5. A cross-examination of lying in literary dialogues Within a dialogue, the participants exert mutual watching (or observation) of their words (the currency of a conversation ) and attitudes. A speaker's behaviour is influenced and modified by exchange with a partner; the behaviour of one of the interactants may not only be ratified by the other, but also objected to. In the case of lying or deceit, there is a lot of conflictual discrimination of one participant against the other. This happens because the not always possible during a dialogue to arrive at a clear-cut decision regarding conversational participants have a systematic mutual suspicion of lying to each other: it is interlocutors' truthful attitudes. We might call it „the complex of credibility": it is a verbal complex due to the fact that people may use the same words to tell the truth or to lie. This generates a lot of metaconversation in the discourse of lying. I am going to examine both the speaker- and the hearer-oriented metacommunicative techniques of conversation . Metatalk is „a highly stylized activity" typical of interactions in which „rhetorical skills may be prized even more highly than the actual content that is being communicated" (Wardhaugh 1985, 134). We have to change some details in this definition in order to accommodate it to our subject. Some rhetorical skills are invoked because there is an urgent need to rely upon the words spoken, and not to keep up conversational appearances. Therefore participants will be committed or commit themselves to truth and responsibility, to the bona-fide mode of conversation.

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176 5.1 Speaker-oriented metacommunicative strategies

A speaker may give his audience reasons to believe that what he says is true. For instance he tries to make his assertion as true as possible getting more credit from the hearer by expressing an emphatic stand towards the primary message of asserting. - prospective metapragmatic comments - they are used to signal the speaker's truthful intention before the primary illocution message (the main assertion is made in the complement clause while the main clause verb merely qualifies the moral strength of the assertion): (3)

,JCath. Without a word of a lie you are a little child." (Orton 1985, 92, Entertaining Mr Sloane)

(4)

„Mr Kidd. I could swear blind I've seen that before." (Pinter 1991, 91, The Room)

A speaker may also use the verb to tell in metapragmatic expressions placed in prospective position: (5)

,Juear. And to tell you the truth I did him a great wrong once, a very great wrong" (Bond 1989, 68, Lear)

Sometimes the commitment is very histrionic: (6)

„But. God anger light upon me if I'm not telling the truth." (Orton 1985, 282, The Erpingham Camp)

- retrospective comments - they occur after the main message, usually in a performative formula or as a parenthetical: (7)

Bodice. The Duke of Cornwall is not a monster. The Duke of North has not sworn to destroy you. I have proof of what I say." (Bond 1989, 19, Lear)

This also suggests more „knowledge authority". - metacomments expressing that the sincerity condition holds for making the statement or the act: (8)

,Jldr Kidd. To tell you the truth, I don't count them know." (Pinter 1991, 93, The Room)

- pretending the imminent character of the declarative act: (9)

„Rose. Well, Mr Kidd, I must say this is a very nice room." (Pinter 1991, 92, The Room)

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,Mr Kidd. Look here, Mrs Hudd, I've got to speak to you. I came up specially. I've got to tell you, that's all. I've got to tell you" (idem)

- monitoring the conversation in the artificial space of discourse privacy as this seems to guarantee the truth: speakers may use expressions like „1 have a word with you", „1 want a private talk with you", „between ourselves". - asking permission to tell something intended to be true to the hearer; this strategy pre-empts the possibility of the hearer's replying with „1 don't believe you": (11)

„La/a (to Goldberg). Shall I tell you something? Goldberg. What?

Lulu. I trust you." (Pinter 1991, 53, The Birthday Party)

5.2 Hearer-oriented metacommunicative strategies In order to avoid the insecurity of being lied to, a speaker will try to prevent his partner from practising a falsehood: - if the speaker expects a truthful answer from his audience, he may describe the truth-seeking procedure he follows: (12)

„Truscott. Now then, I'm going to ask a few questions. I want sensible answers. I've had enough fooling about for one day." (Orton 1985, 244, The Loot)

- he may use an imperative, assuming the authoritative position or the desperate position to command the truth: (13)

„Cutts. Charlie, what is it? [...] Tell me. Be honest. Am I no longer the pleasure I was? Be frank with me. Am I failing you?" (Pinter 1991, 293, The Hothouse)

- using a negative imperative, the speaker attacks the hearer's credibility and at the same time signals to him to change his communicative behaviour; an implicit or explicit rejection of deceit might be cynically manifested (a message like „1 hear none of that", „Let's hear no more of it"): (14)

,JEd. Listening are you? Kath. Yes, Eddie, I'm listening. Ed. You've got a kid staying here. Kath. No... Ed. Don't lie to me." (Orton 1985: 81, Entertaining Mr Sloane)

- in asymmetrical dialogues, the powerful speaker may turn the conversation into an interrogation; he as a questioner will keep on asking and repeating his questions in order to get some warranty of truth. He may also repeat his partner's answers as a sign of disbelief:

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178 (15)

Stanley. Who are they? Meg. They're very nice, Stanley. Stanley. I said, who are they? Meg. I've told you, the two gentlemen." (Pinter 1991, 2 9, The Birthday Party)

- a speaker may call into question the veracity of the hearer's utterances by abusively using tag questions. This creates the challenge to tell the truth or induces the hearer to answer in agreement or disagreement with the content of the question being asked, apparently giving options: (16)

„Stanley. They told you, didn't they? Or didn't they tell you? Meg. Yes, they... Stanley. Then what are they? Come on. Try to remember." (Pinter 1991, 29, The Birthday Party)

- although what the partner says sounds highly unlikely, a speaker may temporarily ignore the lie and take it as truthful information. This is a kind of strategic warning: (17)

„Lenny. Well, Ted, I would say this is something approaching the naked truth, isn't it? It's real cards on the table stunt." (Pinter 1991, 72, The Homecoming)

The „complex of credibility" manifests asymmetrically in a conversation. The speaker-oriented meta-techniques generally credit the speaker, while the hearer-oriented ones preferably discredit the hearer. In patronising credibility, the speaker capitalises well on his disculpation and on the other's inculpation, although nobody is above the suspicion of lying.

5.3 Inculpations and exculpations of lying The disclosure of a lie is a very painiul experience for the victim and also for the liar, when the injured party has the opportunity „to put it" to the liar that he is telling or that he told a lie. This might happen in a dialogue. Inculpations - they are not necessarily metacommunicative expressions. In order to assign responsibility for a lie and at the same time to express rejection towards the act, people generally use the formulaic „You're a liar". This is emotionally stronger than the descriptive formulas „You're lying" or „You lied": (18)

,JCath. I never wanted to do rude things. Tommy made me. Ed. Liar! Kath. Insisted. Pestered me he did. All summer. Ed. You're a liar.(.. .) He didn't want anything to do with you. He told me that." (Orton 1985, 107)

The inculpation is always associated with conflictual and argumentative dialogue. More than this, the dialogue may end with verbal violence (insults) or even physical violence:

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Joyce. What's the matter? Mike. You cow! Playing me up. [...] I've heard about you. You'll be taking your clothes off in the street next. Some men would kill you. You're lucky I'm not some.[...) (He smacks her face. Joyce shrieks with surprise and fright.) I'll murder you!" (Orton 1985, 7, The Ruffian on the Stair)

The violence of the dialogue is augmented because the one being inculpated denies the lie („1 don't know what you're talking about") until the victim proves that he has the necessary information and insight as an endorsement for his accusation. The inculpation may also be addressed to someone absent from the present of the on-going dialogue. In this case there might be a confusion concerning what that person said, what is being reported as his words and what the speaker knows: (20)

,fioote. How do you know she was his mother? Lush. She said so. Roote. She was a liar! Lush. No, she wasn't. Roote. How do you know?" (Pinter 1991, 280, The Hothouse)

A very special case of lying disclosure is represented by the speaker's self-inculpation. In this way he exposes himself to the victim's judgment: (21)

Agatha. [...] I led you to believe I had been married only fifteen years ago, I deceived you.[...] Posket. It wasn't the truth!" (Plays 38, 366, Pinero -The Magistrate)

Exculpations - a liar can exonerate himself from the infraction using the discourse of obstinate denial. If there is evidence of his lying, he may strategically lay the blame on memory confusion, although this is another lie: (22)

, fiance (pause, surprised). Why did you keep the fact from us? Prentice. It'd slipped my memory. Ranee. Have you suffered from lapses of memory before? Prentice. I can't remember. Ranee. Your memory plays you false even on the subject of its own inadequacy?" (Orton 1985, 387)

When the liar feels guilty, his exculpation is actually a promise of correct behaviour or an apology: (23)

„Sloane. Would you accept an unconditional apology. Ed. Telling me lies. Sloane. It won't happen again. Ed. What are your feelings towards me? Sloane. I respect you. [...] Ed. Then why tell me lies?" (Orton 1985, 110, Entertaining Mr Sloane)

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180 5.4 Lying as a projection

This is an ironic manipulation of the idea that it is very difficult or sometimes next to impossible to prove that somebody is a liar. Therefore it might happen to someone to be unreliable and discredited, burdened with lies he has never told or intended: (24)

,Mother. Where are you going? Albert. Mum, I've told you, honestly, three times. Honestly. I've told you three times I had to go out tonight. Mother. No, you didn't. [...] I thought you were joking. Albeit. I'm not going...I'm just going to Mr King's. I've told you. You don't believe me." (Pinter, 1991, 333)

6. Instead of conclusions We have already showed how pragmatic theories manage to draw a clear distinction between lying, as deceitful and punishable behaviour, and pretending, as social lies conventionally carried out for the sake of politeness. This theoretical distinction does not always hold in verbal interactions where the conversational participants reject the emotional insecurity of gratuitous words. Sometimes pretending is turned against the „polite" speaker as if it were a lie, because one of the interlocutors needs to assume the risk of speaking truthfully for the sake of real communication. We may come across subversive techniques of invalidating the routine utterances of everyday conversation: (25)

,JvIcCann.[ . .\ I had the honour of an invitation. Stanley, (moving away). I wouldn't call it an honour, would you? It'll just be another booze-up. McCann. But it is an honour. Stanley. I'd say you were exaggerating. McCann. Oh no. I'd say it was an honour. Stanley. I'd say that was plain stupid." (Pinter 1991, 32, The Birthday Party)

In order to calm down or redress the „threatening potential" of the subject of my paper, I would rather optimistically invoke Habermas' concept of ideal speech situation. In his Utopian „discourse ethics", Habermas „moralizes" the verbal communicative action: he fashions that all assertions should express what is absolutely and objectively true. To approximate this ideal, very far from the postmodern mentality, someone might imagine a metaconversation with parodie overtones meant to eliminate from our discourse performances the baser intentions to deceive, to pretend, to manipulate, to persuade. I was thinking of a strategy added to the theory of politeness: „Don't pretend, don't lie - give versions of truth" quoting here a fragment from an experimental meta-drama; it is a routine dialogue between the Queen and the prime minister:

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„Queen. Good day. Prime Minister. Good day, mam. Queen. Ideal weather for bowling/swimming/running/jumping/giving a garden party/getting crowned/getting married/making your will/taking in lodgers/lifting up your heart/counting your blessings/or departing this life - select the word or phrase of your choice and delete the others as appropriate. Prime Minister. Yes, mam. Queen. And how is your wife/mistress/mother/boyfriend/dog/aunt/son/pet alligator/lady love/fancy man [...] Take appropriate action as already indicated. [...] Queen. Well, I'm delighted/shattered/crestfallen/elated/filled with foreboding/bowled out/seriously perturbed/hysterical/and totally indifferent to everything you say. Narrator. The conversation meandered on in this pleasant and well-bred way for three days and then the Prime Minister mentioned why he'd come. [...] Queen. What a clever/ wonderful/ stupid/ boring/ dazzling/ wet/ happy/ disgraceful/ infantile/ sublime/ uninteresting idea. Prime Minister. Thank you, mam. [..]" (Bond 1989, 244, Passion)

References Airenti, G./Bara, B./Colombetti, M. (1993), Failures, Exploitations and Deceits in Communication. In: Journal of Pragmatics 20, 303-326. Attardo, S. (1993), Violation of Conversational Maxims and Cooperation: The Case of Jokes. In: Journal of Pragmatics 19,5 37-558. Austin, J.L. (1962), How to Do Things With Words. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Bach, K./Harnish, R.M. (1979), Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts, Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. Bender, J./Wellbeiy, D. (eds.), (1990), The Ends of Rhetoric: History, Theory, Practice, Stanford University Press; Chapter: Rhetoricality - On the Modernist Return of Rhetoric, 3-39. Beun, R.J. (1994), Mental State Recognition and Communicative Effects. In: Journal of Pragmatics 21, 191-214. Brown, P./Levinson, S. (1978), Universals in Language Usage: Politeness Phenomena. In: Goody, E.N. (eds.), Questions and Politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction, Cambridge University Press, 56-289. Fish, S. (1989), Doing What Comes Naturally: Change, Rhetoric, and the Practice of Theory in Literary and Legal Studies, Duke: Duke University Press. Grice, H.P. (1975), Logic and Conversation. In: Cole, P./Morgan, J.L. (eds.), Syntax and Semantics, vol.11: Speech Acts, New York: Academic Press, 141-58. Habermas, J. (1990), Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, Cambridge: Polity Press. Harris, S. (1995), Pragmatics and Power. In: Journal of Pragmatics 23, 117-135. James, W. (1977), Pragmatism's Conception of Truth. In: McDermott, J.J. (ed.), The Writings of William James, Chicago University Press. Jankelevitch, V. (1945), Du Mensonge, Paris: Confluences. Kurzon, D. (1995), The Right of Silence: A Socio-pragmatic Model of Interpretation. In: Journal of Pragmatics 23,55-69. Leech, G. (1983), Principles of Pragmatics, London: Longman. Mulhall, S. (1996), Reviewing B.Allen's Truth in Philosophy. In: Philosophical Quaterly, vol.46, no.182, 119122.

Rommetveit, R. (1983), On the Dawning of Different Aspects of Life in a Pluralistic Social World. In: Poetics Today, vol.4:3, 595-609. Rorty, R. (1982), Consequences of Pragmatism, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Searle, J.R. (1969), Speech Acts, London/New York: Cambridge University Press. Stalnaker, R. (1974), Pragmatic Presupposition. In: Munitz, M./Unger, P.K. (eds.), Semantics and Philosophy, New York. Wardhaugh, R. (1985), How Conversation Works, Oxford. Wright, E. (1983), Perception, Pretence and Reality. In. Poetics Today,4:3, 513-542.

182 Literary sources Bond, E. (1989), Plays: vol.2, Methuen Drama Collection, London. Orton, J. (1985), The Complete Plays, London: Methuen. Pinter, H. (1991), Plays: vol.1, London: Faber/Faber. Trewin, J.C. (ed.) (1970), Plays of the Year, vol.38, London: Elek Books.

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Georgeta Rafâ

Argumentation et réfutation

1. Marqueurs dénominatifs de réfutation 2. Marqueurs indicatifs de réfutation 3. Marqueurs potentiels de réfutation 4. Absence de marqueur de réfutation En guise de conclusion Références Textes de référence

Dans la plupart des cas, lorsqu'on parle en réagissant, c'est plutôt pour transmettre un point de vue opposé qu'un point de vue similaire ou identique à celui de l'interlocuteur. Il paraît aussi qu' „on ne parle ni ne pense sans négation et, plus généralement, sans relations d'opposition" (Grize 1982, 139). Cette attitude d'opposition est à la base d'un acte de langage des plus complexes EXPRIMER SON DÉSACCORD - qui englobe une variété de types: refus de faire, refus de répondre à une question, refus de confirmer. Moeschler (1982, 117 et 1985, 95) distingue, à l'intérieur du refus de confirmer, deux sous-types: l'infirmation (identifiable à un désaccord simple - cf. Debyser 1980, 84) et la réfutation, entendue comme action de réfuter, raisonnement par lequel on réfute (identifiable à un désaccord argumenté - cf. ibidem). Nous verrons que la réfutation suppose, de la part du locuteur, la prise en compte, comme point d'appui, d'une argumentation, dans la plupart des cas sous-entendue, le discours argumentatif n'étant pas un discours apportant à proprement parler des preuves, ni un discours fonctionnant sur les principes de la déduction logique. Dans cette perspective, argumenter ne revient pas à démontrer la vérité d'une assertion, ni à indiquer le caractère logiquement valide d'un raisonnement, mais à donner des raisons (qui constituent, lorsqu'elles sont énoncées, autant d'arguments) pour telle ou telle conclusion: une argumentation consiste donc en une relation entre un ou des arguments et une conclusion. Dans ce qui suit, nous nous proposons de voir s'il y a une relation, de quelque type que ce soit, entre le type de marqueur linguistique d'acte illocutoire de réfutation et le degré d'incidence de l'argumentation, la typologie des marqueurs étant celle suggérée par Roulet (1991, 30).

Georgeta Rafâ

184 1. Marqueurs dénominatifs de réfutation

La forme la plus explicite d'une réfutation est liée à la présence d'un marqueur dénominatif de réfutation (marqueur qui communique la valeur de l'acte explicitement, en le nommant), c'est-à-dire à la présence du verbe performatif réfuter (ou d'un prédicat relevant du même paradigme - contester, démentir, dénier, nier), cas où l'énoncé ne peut recevoir qu'une seule interprétation - celle de réfutation. Au point de vue de leurs propriétés pragmatiques, seul réfuter n'est qu'à moitié performatif (Moeschler parle de pseudo-performativité - 1982, 123), un performatif étant un verbe qui réalise une action par le fait de dire (cf. Austin 1970). Ce qui différencie réfuter des autres verbes réfutatifs c'est que son emploi présuppose l'existence d'une argumentation: • •

Réfuter une théorie, opinion, objection par des preuves convaincantes. (D.F.C., s.v. réfuter). Les étudiants islamiques ont réfuté point par point les accusations lancées par le président Jimmy Carter sur les conditions de détention des otages américains. L e s o t a g e s o n t l e d r o i t de p r e n d r e de l'exercice au m o i n s u n e f o i s p a r j o u r d a n s l e s j a r d i n s de l ' a m b a s s a d e , a déclaré à l'agence Reuter un porte-paroles des étudiants. I l s o n t p r i s a u m o i n s d e u x b a i n s p a r s e m a i n e et l e u r n o u r r i t u r e a é t é p r é p a r é e p a r le c u i s i n i e r de l ' a m b a s s a d e [...]. (Moeschler 1982, 121)

et que son emploi à la première personne singulier du présent de l'indicatif ne peut qu'annoncer l'argumentation à venir, non l'effectuer (ibidem): •

Je réfute vos accusations v i v a n t e , (ibidem)

(d'avoir tué ma femme), c a r

elle

n'est

pas

morte, mais

bien

2. Marqueurs indicatifs de réfutation Pour réfuter un énoncé antérieurement produit, il est également possible d'utiliser des marqueurs indicatifs de réfutation, marquers qui communiquent la valeur de l'acte sur le mode de Y implicitation conventionnelle: sans dénommer la fonction, le marqueur de ce type Vindique de manière univoque. Les „locutions" métalinguistiques du type c'est faux, c'est un mensonge et ce n 'est pas vrai, ce n 'est pas la vérité, les prophrases adverbiales du type oui, non, si, les substituts nominaux du type personne et rien, les substituts lexicalisés du type du tout et les prophrases interjectivales thématisent la contradiction propre à la réfutation. En ce qui concerne les locutions métalinguistiques, qu'elles soient à base adjectivale ou nominale, à sémantisme négatif ou positif nié, elles peuvent soit annoncer l'argumentation soit / 'introduire: •

- Il a prétendu qu'il t'aimait? -Oui. - Et tu l'as cru? -Oui.

Argumentation

et réfutation

185

- Mais c'est absurde, ma chérie. I l

s'est

moqué

de

t o i ! (Troyat, L'araigne,

171)

•

- [... ] Il préfère être mon mari à moi! - C'est pas vrai! a dit Micheline [... ]. (Sempé/Goscinny, Les vacances du petit Nicolas, 61)

•

Inès: Vous? Vous êtes le boureau. Garcin [...]: C'est une méprise tout i fait amusante. (Sartre, Huis clos, 20)

Quant aux prophrases adverbiales, elles ne s'accompagnent de l'argumentation sous-tendant la réfutation que dans le cas des substituts adverbiaux du type oui (employé à contresens): •

Oreste: Il voyage, comme nous. Le Pédagogue: Ouais! N o u s l ' a v o n s r e n c o n t r é s u r l a r o u t e d e D e l p h e s . Et q u a n d n o u s n o u s s o m m e s e m b a r q u é s , à I t é a , il é t a l a i t d é j à sa barbe s u r le b a t e a u . A N a u p l i e n o u s ne p o u v i o n s f a i r e un p a s s a n s 1' a v o i r d a n s n o s j a m b e s , e t , à p r é s e n t , le v o i l à i c i . C e l a v o u s p a r a î t s a n s dout e d e s i m p l e s c o i n c i d e n c e s ? [...] (Sartre, Les Mouches, 84)

Si: •

- Elle n'aura rien d'intéressant, cette fête! -Si! Monsieur L o n j o n a dit que ce s'écrie Katia. (Troyat, Cent un coups de canon, 75)

serait

„le

festin

des

barbares"!

et non: •

- Oh! C'est dégoûtant! - Mais non, p u i s q u ' o n

s ' a i m e ! (Troyat, La Grive, 179)

dans le cas de l'indice négatif pas •

- Mais le résultat serait le même si... -Absolument pas! T u n ' a s p a s e n c o r e c o m p r i s d o u b l e b u t [...]. (Troyat, Cent un coups de canon, 365)

que

nos

exécutions

ont

un

et des prophrases interjectivales alors, bah, ha, hé, hein, peuh, p f f t , pfou, quoi: •

•

- J'ai peur que notre enfant n'ait pas l'esprit très scientifique. - Et alors, répond Marguerite. I l l ' a v a i t , l ' e s p r i t c o m m e tu d i s s c i e n t i f i q u e , S a v o r g n a n de B r a z z a ? Ça ne l'a p a s e m p ê c h é d ' a v a n c e r d a n s la j u n g l e . (Orsenna, L'Exposition coloniale, 60) M me Rémy: Scipion, la voiture est arrivée? Scipion: Oui, madame. M"16 Rémy: On disait que la route était coupée par la neige. Scipion: Peuh! Q u i n z e m i n u t e s d e r e t a r d . (Romains, Knock, 111)

ni les dictionnaires de langue, ni le corpus investigué n'attestant l'argumentation après les substituts nominaux, les substituts lexicalisés ou les substituts adverbiaux négatifs.

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Georgeta Rafâ

3. Marqueurs potentiels de réfutation Les marqueurs potentiels de réfutation communiquent la valeur de l'acte sur le mode de Vimplicitation conversationnelle généralisée: il s'agit de la négation, des lexèmes, des connecteurs argumentatifs, des connecteurs phatiques et des prophrases interjectivales. La présence d'une négation n'est pas une condition satisfaisante pour l'enchaînement sur l'acte illocutoire de réfutation qui lui confère cette valeur, comme dans: •

Rataplan n'est pas stupide, p u i s q u ' i l

a découvert

la

c a c h e 11 e [...] (Moeschler, 1982, 81)

En ce qui concerne les lexèmes, nous n'avons trouvé d'arguments qu'après les lexèmes centrés sur l'énoncé et se circonscrivant à Vimpossible-. •

- Je te promets, maman, que j'ai vu un grand diable vert, balbutia-t-elle. Il était là, près du lit. Il ouvrait la bouche. C'était rouge dedans... - En voilà des sornettes! dit Amélie. T u

as

fait

un

mauvais

r ê v e [...].

(Troyat, La Grive, 66)

et à la modalité affective: •

Clérambard: L'humilité est l'antichambre de toutes les perfections. Et c'est justement ce trésor-là, Octave, que la Langouste vous apportera en dot. Louise: Assez de sottises. E s s a y e z d e r e t r o u v e r u n p e u d e b o n s e n s e t p e n s e z a u b o n h e u r d e v o t r e f i l l e . (Aymé, Clérambard, 69)

mais jamais après les lexèmes centrés sur l'auteur de l'énoncé. Parmi les marqueurs potentiels de réfutation, les connecteurs argumentatifs tiennent une place à part: ils articulent des actes de langage (des énoncés intervenant dans la réalisation d'actes d'argumentation). On en distingue deux types: connecteurs contre-argumentatifs proprement dit et concessifs. Le connecteur contre-argumentatif proprement dit au contraire peut avoir des emplois oppositif et de contradiction, explicitant une relation de contradiction (condition nécessaire à la réfutation): •

Le Curé: [... ] J'ose en effet vous rappeler que vous vous trouvez dans une situation matérielle des plus difficiles. [...] Clérambard: Au contraire, elle est des plus faciles.Je s u i s d é j à p a u v r e e t j e n e r ê v e q u ' à ê t r e p l u s p a u v r e e n c o r e . [...] (Aymé, Clérambard, 172)

Les connecteurs contre-argumentatifs concessifs articulent une relation de contradiction tout en résolvant cette contradiction à l'intérieur de l'intervention. Moeschler (1991, 133-134) distingue trois sous-classes de connecteurs contre-argumentatifs concessifs: mais et quand même, considérés les plus argumentatifs; bien que et pourtant, considérés les plus logiques; cependant et néanmoins, connecteurs ayant une certaine neutralité argumentative.

187

Argumentation et réfutation

Les connecteurs phatiques sont, en fait, des outils logiques qui organisent entre elles des propositions, en les articulant de façon à rendre prévisible la suite du discours. Une première catégorie est constituée par les marqueurs réalisant un enchaînement linéaire du type argument—> argument rectifiant à partir d'un constituant du même locuteur - NoteUNotez!, Remarque!/Remarquez!, Retiens!/Retenez!: •

Knock [...]: [...] Eh bien! quand vous êtes tombée de l'échelle, votre Tflrck et votre Clarke ont glissé en sens inverse [...] de quelques dizaines de millimètres. Vous me direz que c'est très peu. Evidemment. Mais c'est très mal placé. Et puis vous avez ici un tiraillement continu qui s'exerce sur les multipolaires.[... ] La Dame: Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Knock: Remarquez q u e v o u s n e m o u r r e z p a s d u j o u r a u l e n d e m a i n . V o u s p o u v e z a t t e n d r e . (Romains, Knock, 88)

Une deuxième catégorie englobe les connecteurs marquant un décrochement descendant du type affirmation —> explication toujours à partir d'un constituant du même locuteur - Tu parles!/ Vous parlez!, Tu pensesUVous pensez!, Va!/Allons!/Allez!, Tu comprends/Vous comprenez, Tu sais/Vous savez, Tu vois/Vous voyez, Ecoute!/Ecoutez!: •

- Elle dort! -Penses-tu! E l l e

fait semblant!

(Troyat, La Grive, 286)

Une troisième catégorie inclut le connecteur Remarque!/Remarquez!, enchaînement linéaire à partir d'un constituant de l'interlocuteur: •

qui réalise un

A: L'année prochaine, grâce aux déductions, je ne paierai plus beaucoup d'impôts! B: Remarque! T u n ' e n a s j a m a i s p a y é b e a u c o u p ! (Davoine, 1980, 87)

La quatrième catégorie englobe les connecteurs réalisant un décrochement descendant à partir d'«« constituant de l'interlocuteur du type affirmation —> explication - Ecoute!/Ecoutez!, Penses-tu!/Pensez-vous!, Dis(-donc)!/Dites(-donc)!, VaHAllonsHAllez!, Tu dis?/Vous dites?, Plaît-il? \ •

Leni: Honnêtement, je vous rappelle que les serments ne m'engagent pas. Le Père: Va, va, Leni, j e m e f i e à t o i.[...] (Sartre, Les Séquestrés d'Altona, 33)

Les prophrases interjectivales du type attention! ou pardon! aussi peuvent introduire une argumentation: •

Le Docteur: [...] vous êtes un débutant. Knock: Pardon! Mes études sont, en effet, toutes récentes. Mais m o n d é b u t d e l a m é d e c i n e d a t e d e v i n g t a n s . (Romains, Knock, 31)

dans

la

pratique

188

Georgeta Rafä

4. Absence de marqueur de réfutation Dans le cas de l'absence de marqueur de réfutation (marqueur zéro), la fonction illocutoire dépend uniquement du cotexte et du contexte: la négation, de quelque type qu'elle soit, est remplacée par l'énonciation d'une argumentation capable de réfuter par elle-même la véridicité de l'énoncé antérieurement produit. Dans ce cas, c'est un acte d'argumentation qui remplace la réfutation proprement dite: •

Garcin: [...] Et si je balançais le bronze sur la lampe électrique, est-ce qu'elle s'éteindrait? Le Garçon: Il est trop lourd. (Sartre, Huis clos, 16)

En guise de conclusion Nous avons vu que les quatre types de marqueurs d'acte illocutoire de réfutation ne sont aucunement spécialisés - sauf les verbes réfutatifs, mais là aussi il y a le problème de la pseudoperformativité du verbe réfuter\ - à introduire l'argumentation: l'explication doit résider dans le fait que, par rapport aux autres actes de langage institutionnalisés - nous avons en vue des actes comme REMERCIER ou SALUER, par exemple - l'acte de langage RÉFUTER n'a pas de marqueurs qui lui soient propres - exception faite pour les verbes réfutatifs et pour les connecteurs argumentatifs (ou contre-argumentatifs vu qu'ils apportent des contrearguments à un argument antérieurement posé de façon explicite ou implicite). Références Austin, J.L. (1970), Quand dire, c'est faire, Paris: Seuil. Davoine, J.-P. (1980), ...Des connecteurs phatiques. In: Kerbrat-Orecchioni, C. (éd.), Le discours polémique, Lyon: P.U.L., 83-108. Debyser, F. (1980), Exprimer son désaccord. In: Le Français dans le Monde, no. 153, 80-88. Grize, J.-Bl. (1982), De la logique à l'argumentation, Genève: Droz. Moeschler, J. (1982), Dire et contredire. Pragmatique de la négation et acte de réfutation dans la conversation, Berne: Peter Lang. Moeschler, J. (1985), Argumentation et conversation. Eléments pour une analyse pragmatique du discours, Paris: Hatier. Roulet, E. et al. (1991), L'articulation du discours en français contemporain, Berne: Peter Lang.

Textes de référence Aymé, M. (1959), Clérambard, Paris: Bernard Grasset. Orsenna, E. (1991), L'Exposition coloniale, Paris: Seuil. Romains, J. (1956), Knock, Paris: Gallimard. Sartre, J.-P. (1964), Les Mouches, Paris: Gallimard. Sartre, J.-P. (1966), Les Séquestrés d'Altona, Paris: Gallimard. Sempé/Goscinny (1984), Les vacances du petit Nicolas, Paris: Denoël. Troyat, H. (1976), Cent un coups de canon, Paris: Pion. Troyat, H. (1964), L'Araigne, Paris: Pion. Troyat, H. (1976), La Grive, Paris: Presses Pocket.

Christoph Mischo/Ursula

Christmann

The Persuasive Effects of (Un-)Fair and Aesthetic Contributions in Argumentations: An Empirical Study1

1 Introduction 2. The construct of argumentational integrity 3. The concept of aesthetic quality and its operationalization 4. Empirical testing and validation 5. Procedure and first results Notes References

1. Introduction In the following contribution we are concerned with the persuasive effects of argumentation depending upon the integrity and the aesthetic quality of argumentational contributions. With regard to the relation between integrity and aesthetics three prototypical or „ideal" possibilities can be distinguished which are anchored in the history of philosophy and rhetorics: (a) Aesthetics is considered to be the decisive factor in producing persuasive effects, the moral component can be neglected. This means: Whether participants in an argumentative discussion make false assertions, distort the original meaning of facts, devaluate the opponent's self-respect or discredit the opponent in one way or the other is secondary. The only thing that counts is „having fun", „pleasure", „enjoyment". And an argumentation is fun, if the arguments presented are rhetorically and linguistically nothing but brilliant. (b) Integrity is considered to be a necessary condition for any aesthetic component becoming effective. According to this position the moral component is the relevant factor for persuasive force; the aesthetic component is regarded as an additional ornament of speech. (c) The relation between aesthetics and integrity is a compensatory one: aesthetic quality is able to compensate unfairness, integrity is able to compensate a lack of aesthetic quality. On a more abstract level these three possible relations correspond to controversial theoretical positions advocated in the literature of philosophy and rhetorics where they have been discussed under the broader label of „aesthetics and moral" (Fruchtl 1996). We treat them as a kind of exploratory hypotheses, that is, our interest is to find out which of the three possibilities is empirically valid. Thus, we have conducted a study in which we collected data on the persuasive effects of argumentational contributions varied systematically with regard to integrity and aesthetics of speech. In the following we would like to report on this study. First we will introduce you to our conceptualization of „argumentational integrity" and „aesthetics of speech". Next we will present our empirical research approach and some first results.

190

Christoph Mischo/Ursula

Christmann

2. The construct of argumentational integrity The construct of argumentational integrity describes criteria for the evaluation of contributions to argumentative discussions under an ethical perspective. These criteria have been put forward in the form of conditions, defining characteristics and standards of (un-)fair argumentation. In deriving the construct of argumentational integrity, we started from a prescriptive use of „argumentation", which relies on rationality and cooperation as the goal characteristics of the argumentative procedure. Thus we have defined „argumentation" as follows: In an argumentation, the participants attempt to find a solution / to a controversial issue (requirement) / by means of a partner-/listener-oriented exchange of views (process)/that is based on (good) reasons (goal) / and made acceptable to all participants (in a cooperative manner) (goal). In order to potentially reach the goal chararcteristies of rationality and cooperation, contributions to an argumentation should conform to the four conditions of (I) formal validity, (II) sincerity/truth, (III) justice on the content level and (IV) procedural justice/communicativity (Groeben/Schreier/Christmann 1993; Schreier/Groeben/Christmann 1995).

We have defined the keeping to these conditions as ¿airtheir

conscious violation as , unfair'

argumentation. Next we have specified four characteristics of unfair argumentation, which can be regarded as the „negative" of the four argumentative conditions. These characteristics constitute classes of argumentative rule violations on a high level of abstraction. In a further step, we have specified standards of argumentational

integrity which were derived on the basis of an empirical

classification of 35 unethical strategies selected (representatively) from popular rhetorical texts. A cluster analysis of these classifications yielded 11 standards of fair argumentation, which again constitute classes of rule violations on a medium level of abstraction (Schreier/Groeben 1996). Since 1988 we have demonstrated in a series of empirical studies the psychological validity of our specification of the construct ,argumentational integrity' (e.g. Christmann/Groeben 1995; Christmann/Schreier/Groeben 1996; Schreier/Groeben/Blickle 1995; Groeben/Nuse/Gauler 1992). In the present context, it is important to note that it could be shown that violations of the standards of integrity are conspicious, are recognized on a reactive level of response and are negatively evaluated (Schreier/Groeben/Blickle 1995). The negative evaluation of unfair argumentation is the starting point for our research question on the relation between integrity and aesthetic quality of argumentational contributions.

3. The concept of aesthetic quality and its operationalization First we have to operationalize the aesthetic quality of argumentational contributions. Since the time of classical rhetoric, a number of rhetorical and stylistic figures have been proposed as ornaments of good speech (like alliteration, metaphor, metonymy and so on) which are still valid today. In recent years, researchers in the field have tried to systematize and classify these rhetoric figures (e.g. Leech 1966 and the Liittich group n; Plett 1977). According to Plett, rhetoricstylistic figures can be classified as syntactic, semantic and pragmatic deviations with regard to

The Persuasive Effects of (Un-)Fair and Aesthetic Contributions in Argumentations

191

„normal", that is conventional or standard language usage. In terms of gestalt psychology, the characteristic feature of semiotic deviations (that is the potentially aesthetic quality) can be described as a figure (or .foregrounding') which contrasts against the background of conventional language usage (van Peer 1986). But apart from linguistic features of speech, the context (e.g. occasion and recipients), too, must be considered for the evaluation of the aesthetic quality, an issue pointed out as early as in classical rhetoric theories. This implies that we turn away from approaches, which regard only features immanent to the linguistic product as aesthetically being relevant. Accordingly, we consider the effects of linguistic features on the recipients as part of the aesthetic quality of the product (that is of an utterance) and thereby take into account the recipient's cognitive constructivity. Let us give you an example: Grammatical deviations in a literary context may be thought of as being aesthetic (like Claire's language usage in Tucholsky's ,Rheinsberg': „Glaubsu, daß es hier Bärens gibt?"), whereas the same deviations in an educational context at school are simply evaluated as „incorrect". This phenomenon shows clearly, that situational context plays an important role in evaluating aesthetic quality. Individual-centered psychological interpretations of .foregrounding' and „backgrounding" as well take into account the actual situational context: Only those features are experienced as deviant (and potentially aesthetic), which stand out against an individual's expectations and reference norms. In other situations, different expectations and norms can be relevant and thus, other features of an utterance can be experienced as being aesthetic. At this point, similarities to psychological theories of motivation are obvious, but cannot be discussed in detail here. The previous example of evaluating grammatical deviations in a literary vs. an educational setting suggests that apart from the situational setting as such, the presumed ability and intention of the speaker may affect the reactions and evaluations constructed by the listener in a given context. Parallel to the evaluation of unfair speech acts in this case, too, we consider the attribution of the speaker's intention as relevant for evaluating the aesthetic quality of utterances. The effect on the recipient is in itself a complex multilevel reaction. Apart from the aesthetic evaluation in a more narrow sense, we are also interested in some further aspects of this reaction, which we discuss later. To summarize, we have developed a theoretical model, which allows us to describe and explain the effects of rhetoric-aesthetic speech. We conceptualize ,aesthetic quality' as a multirelational construct, consisting of the following components: the semiotic (that is the syntactic, semantic or pragmatic) deviation of an utterance, the situational context and the speaker's presumed intention. We consider these features to be empirically testable.

4. Empirical testing and validation The goal of our empirical testing is twofold: On the one hand, we want to validate the concept of aesthetics that we have just presented, on the other hand we want to test the relation between

192

Christoph Mischo/Ursula

Christmann

aesthetics and argumentational integrity (see above chap. 1). For that purpose, we have established the following exploratory hypotheses: (1) Validation of the concept of aesthetics (dependent variable: aesthetic evaluation) Argumentational contributions including semiotic deviations are evaluated more positively than contributions, that do not include semiotic deviations. The speaker's presumed intention plays an important role in the evaluation of aesthetic quality. (2) Relation between aesthetics and (un-)fairness (dependent variable: persuasive effects) (2a) Superiority of aesthetics Semiotically deviant utterances have a larger persuasive effect than non-deviant utterances. The dimension of integrity has no effects. (2b) Fairness as a necessary condition of aesthetic effects Only in case of fair arguments, semiotically deviant utterances are more effective than nondeviant contributions. (2c) Compensation of missing aesthetics by fairness and vice versa Unfair, but semiotically deviant contributions are as effective as fair and non-deviant contributions. Unfair and semiotically deviant contributions are more effective then unfair and semiotically non-deviant utterances. Conversely semiotically non-deviant, but fair contributions are more effective than semiotically non-deviant, but unfair contributions. The empirical testing of these hypotheses request an operationalization of the independent variables (,fairness' and ,aesthetics') and the dependent variable (,persuasive effect'). With regard to the independent variable of aesthetics, we first had to check, which rhetoric figures can count as ornaments of speech. After the study of the relevant literature, we established a list of rhetoric figures and asked experts (psychologists and/or linguists competent in the field of rhetoric) to rank these (10) rhetoric figures in an order of relevance and importance. On the basis of this expert rating we selected the most prominent types of rhetoric figures and classified them according to Plett's model of semiotic deviation. The following classification rules were applied: Figures are classified as syntactically deviant, if their structure on the phonological, morphological or sentence-level deviates from the normal or conventional corresponding structure (e.g. the anaphora „Television makes children become violent. Television makes children use violence" or the alliteration „Media make meanings"). Figures are classified as semantic deviations, if the relation between utterance meaning and conventional meaning is one of similarity, contrast or contiguity. An example for a relation of similarity is the metaphor „bacillus of violence", for a relation of contrast the ironic comment on a heavy crime movie: „That was really neat", for a relation of contiguity the metonymy „Television kills people" (the cause is used in place of effect). We classified utterances as pragmatic deviations if a speech act (that is the illocutionary act) deviates form the illocutionary act normally associated with that contribution (for example rhetorical questions like „Who will deny that?").

The Persuasive Effects of (Un-)Fair and Aesthetic Contributions in Argumentations

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Certain ironic speech acts can be classified as semantic and pragmatic deviations, because the meaning of the utterance deviates from the substituted normal language usage and the illocutionary act deviates from the norm (e.g. „Shouldn't we parents buy each kid three televisions?"). The independent variable ,(un-)fairness' was manipulated by use of the 11 standards of argumentational integrity (see note2 below), which describe classes of argumentional rule violations and which have been validated in several empirical studies (e.g. Schreier/Groeben 1990; Schreier 1992). The rhetoric figures and the standards and strategies of argumentational integrity were used to modify contributions in argumentational episodes. These episodes are short versions of a fictitious dialogue between two people on the causes of violence. While maintaining the basic meaning, we varied certain parts of the utterances, so that they represented combinations of fair or unfair and semiotically deviant or non-deviant speech acts. The appropriateness and success of our variations was guarantueed by an expert-rating. We created 5 different episodes, with each episode containing 10 different variations of (un-)fair and (non-)deviant utterances. Altogether we constructed 50 different episodes. Table 1 (see below) gives an overview of the combinations of our two factors,aesthetics' and ,(un-)fairness'. To give an example, we filled out two cells of this scheme. (For the relevant passages of the corresponding episodes see note.3) Semiotic deviations nondeviant

deviant syntactic

fair

(Un-)fairncss

unfair

semantic

pragmatic

semantic and pragmatic

(e.g. 1st variant) characteristic I (faulty arguments) characteristic II (insincere contributions) characteristic III (unjust arguments)

characteristic IV (unjust interactions) combination of characteristics Table 1: Combinations of the two factors .aesthetics' and ,(un-)fairness'

e.g. distortion of meaning, discrediting of others, realized in an ironic speech act (e.g. 2nd variant)

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For the validation of the aesthetic model, the main dependent variable is the aesthetic evaluation of contributions (in a narrow sense). With regard to the relation between .aesthetics' and ,(un-)fairness', we are primarily interested in persuasive effects. Concerning this variable, we differentiate between emotional-conative aspects of agreement to an argument on the one hand, and cognitive effects in the sense of correct representation of the given reasons on the other hand. To measure these two aspects, we have formulated a number of statements about possible effects. The subjects were asked to indicate the degree of agreement to these statements on fivepoint rating scales. Table 2 shows the independent and the dependent variables differentiated in our study. Independent variables aesthetics operationalized as semiotic deviations (non-deviant contributions vs. syntactic, semantic and/or pragmatic deviations) combined with (un-)faimess operationalized as violations of standards of argumentational integrity (fair and unfair arguments)

dependent variables

aesthetic evaluation (e.g. „brillant", „beautiful"?) > emotional reactions (e.g. „pleasant"?) cognitive reaction/representation (e.g. „convincing", „agreement"?) physical reactions (e.g. „made me smile"?)

Table 2: Independent and dependent variables of the study

5. Procedure and first results The study was carried out at the University of Heidelberg. 160 subjects participated in the study. Data were collected by questionnaire. Each subject was asked to evaluate 5 argumentational episodes. 90 subjects received the episodes in a written, 70 subjects in an acustic form (Mischo/Groeben/Christmann 1996; Mischo/Christmann/Groeben 1996). With regard to these latter subjects, data were collected in individual sessions. We have not yet finished our data analysis, but we can present some first results, regarding the presentation of the written episodes. The empirical tests were based on „objective" (classified by experts) as well as on subjectively identified semiotic deviations and (un-)fair arguments. Concerning the concept of aesthetics, „objective" as well as subjective data seem to validate our conceptualization: Semiotic deviant utterances scored higher on items indicating the aesthetic quality than did non-deviant utterances. Semantic deviations (like metaphors and metonymies) received the highest values in aesthetic quality. Differences in „objectively" and subjectively identified ironic speech acts (as semantic and pragmatic deviations) with regard to aesthetic effects emphasize the role of the speaker's presumed intentions.

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With regard to the relation between aesthetics and (un-)fairness, both types of data strongly support the second of our prototypical cases (b) „fairness as a necessary condition for aesthetic effects". The data clearly show that in the case of fair contributions, semiotic deviations in particular were considered convincing, whereas in the case of unfair contributions, semiotic deviations could not compensate for the negative effects of unfairness.

Notes 1. This paper is based on the research conducted in the project CI ,Argumentational Integrity in Everyday Communication' which is part of the SFB .Language and Situation' (Heidelberg/Mannheim). We would like to thank the German Research Association for supporting our work. 2. Standards of Argumentational Integrity I. Faulty arguments 1. Violation of stringency: Do not intentionally present your arguments in a non-stringent fashion (e.g.: „proof by inconsequent argument"). 2. Refusal of justification: Do not intentionally avoid giving any or intentionally give insufficient reasons in support of your assertions (e.g.: „appeal to mere authority"). II. Insincere contributions 3. Pretence of truth: Do not make such assertions out to be objectively true which you know to be either false or merely subjective (e.g.: „making false statements"). 4. Shifting of responsibility: Do not intentionally deny, claim, or transfer responsibility to others (persons or institutions) without justification (e.g.: „shifting one's competence onto someone else"). 5. Pretence of consistency: Do not consciously present any arguments which are not or are only seemingly congruent with what you otherwise do or say (e.g.: „discrepancy between words and actions"). III. Unjust arguments 6. Distortion of meaning: Do not repeat contributions made by others, your own contributions, or facts in such a way as to intentionally distort their original meaning (e.g.: „changing the meaning of a term during an argument"). 7. Impossibility of compliance: Do not, and be it only by negligence, demand anything of others which you know they will not be able to do (e.g.: „making two mutually exclusive demands"). 8. Discrediting of others: Do not, and be it only by negligence, discredit other participants (e.g.: „changing the opponent's competence to argue the issue"). IV. Unjust interactions 9. Expression of hostility: Do not intentionally act towards your adversary in the matter at hand as though he were your personal enemy (e.g.: „attempt to intimidation by being rude"). 10. Hindrance of participation: Do not intentionally interact with others in such a way as to impede their participation (e.g.: „pressuring the others to act"). 11. Breaking off: Do not break off the argumentation without justification (e.g.: „pretending that the issue is really irrelevant"). 3. Example: part of an experimental episode In one episode, a scientist (A) and a social worker (B) are arguing on a congress about the appropriate methods to find out the relationship between television and violence. Person A does not think that it is impossible to find out the relationships by interviews with young people on the street, but strongly supports questionairesurveys with students. Person B has a different point of view. First variant (fair and semiotically non-deviant) Person B: „1 know that it's difficult to carry out a study with young people on the street, but it would be worthwhile because on the streets you can find young people, watching TV 6 hours a day and being aggressive, neither of which applies to your students, I suppose. Apart from that, I think that there are a number of approved interview-methods, so that it would be quite possible to carry out a good study on the street." Second variant (unfair (unjust arguments: distortion of meaning, discrediting of others), semantic and pragmatic deviant (ironic)).

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Person B: „Your objections against interviews are very encouraging! But it's simply not true, that it is absolutely impossible to carry out a good survey with the interview method. But probably, you are right: Never carry out a study with young people on the street, because there you can neither find violence, nor people watching TV frequently. Whereas your students obviously are watching TV 6 hours a day and starting to become violent every evening. I've got the impression, that most objections are raised by people, who don't have any idea about interview methods."

References Christmann, U./Groeben, N. (1995), Diagnosis and Evaluation of Violations of Argumentational Integrity: An Empirical Study. In: Eemeren, F. H. Van/Grootendorst, R./Blair, A. J./Willard, C. A. (eds ), Proceedings of the third ISSA Conference on Argumentation, Amsterdam 1994, Vol. Ill, Amsterdam, 219-229. Christmann, U./Schreier, M./Groeben, N. (1996), War das Absicht? Indikatoren subjektiver Intentionalitätszustände bei der ethischen Bewertung von Argumentationsbeiträgen. In: Linguistik und Literaturwissenschaft, 101 (Themenheft Sprache und Subjektivität I), 70-113. Friichtl, J. (1996), Ästhetische Erfahrung und moralisches Urteil. Eine Rehabilitierung, Frankfurt/M. Groeben, N./Nüse, R/Gauler, E. (1992), Diagnose argumentativer Unintegrität. Objektive und subjektive Tatbestandsmerkmale bei Werturteilen über argumentative Sprechhandlungen. In: Zeitschrift für experimentelle und angewandte Psychologie, 39 (4), 533-558. Groeben, N./Schreier, M./Christmann, U. (1993), Fairness beim Argumentieren: Argumentationsintegrität als Wertkonzept einer Ethik der Kommunikation. In: Linguistische Berichte, 147, 355-382. Leech, G.N. (1966), Linguistics and the Figures of Rhetoric. In: Fowler, R. (ed.), Essays on Style and Language. Linguistic Critical Approaches to Literary Style, London, 135-156. Mischo, C./Christmann, U./Groeben, N. (1996), Argumentationsintegrität (XX): Persuasive Wirkeffekte sprachlicher Ästhetik und argumentativer (Un-)Integrität (II): Methodenvergleich (schriftliche vs. akustische Darbietung). Arbeiten aus dem Sonderforschungsbereich 245, Heidelberg/Mannheim, Bericht Nr. 99. Mischo, C./Groeben, N./Christmann, U. (1996), Argumentationsintegrität (XIX): Persuasive Wirkeffekte sprachlicher Ästhetik und argumentativer (Un-)Integrität (I): Konzeptualisierung, Validierung und Hypothesenprüfung. Arbeiten aus dem Sonderforschungsbereich 245, Heidelberg/Mannheim, Bericht Nr. 98. van Peer, W. (1986), Stylistics and Psychology: Investigations of Foregrounding, Wolfeboro. Plett, H.F. (1977), Die Rhetorik der Figuren. In: Plett, H.F. (ed.), Rhetorik, München, 125-165. Schreier, M. (1992), Rhetorische Strategien und Integritätsstandards: Zur Relation von Rhetorik, Dialektik und Argumentationsintegrität. Unveröff. Diplomarbeit, Psych. Institut der Universität Heidelberg. Schreier, M./Groeben, N. (1990), Argumentationsintegrität (III): Rhetorische Strategien und Integritätsstandards. Arbeiten aus dem Sonderforschungsbereich 245, Heidelberg/Mannheim, Bericht Nr. 30. Schreier, M./Groeben, N. (1996), Ethical Guidelines for the Conduct in Argumentative Discussions: An Exploratory Study. In: Human Relations, 49 (1), 123-132. Schreier, MVGroeben, N./Blickle, G. (1995), The Effects of (Un-)Faimess and (Im-)Politeness on the Evaluation of Argumentative Communication. In: Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 14 (3), 260-288. Schreier, M./Groeben, N./Christmann, U. (1995), That's not Fair: Argumentational Integrity as an Ethics of Argumentative Communication. In: Argumentation, 9, 267-289.

Ladislav Tondi The Importance of Dialogue Between Science and Society

1. Several initial restrictions 2. Terms of dialogue 3. The start and goals of dialogue 4. Initiatives 5. Forms of dialogue References

1. Several initial restrictions The title of this paper may give rise to a sceptical question: How can science conduct a dialogue? Isn't such a phrase just an analogy to the universalist phrases of the recent past which claimed that „society was heading" (somewhere, towards socialism, towards a welfare state etc.), „it was constructing" (an ideologically formulated system, large-scale projects etc.), „the people were jubilant" (usually over „the achievements of socialist construction"), paying tribute („to their leaders")? It is equally natural that science cannot „conduct a dialogue" just as it cannot „spell out serious warnings", „go hand in hand with the people" (as demanded by communist ideologues) etc. Proponents of this mode of expression may argue that these are just metaphors or some kind of abbreviated phrases. But it can be argued that such metaphors are not always in a position to rule out personification of such abstractions or, as was traditionally put it, abstract entities (or „universalia" in the traditional terminology) which result from certain verbal and thought constructs or generalizations. Furthermore, one should not lose sight of the fact that interpretation of such abstract entities may be very diverse, leading to the confusion of the minds and to numerous misunderstandings. Dialogue relating to the trends of science, research projects, their anticipated results, possible applications and also potential risks posed by such applications and also the social, cultural, economic and some other requirements placed on research and development activities can and should be conducted by individual personalities of science, for instance, by authors of major projects, leading officials of scientific and research institutions, with political, cultural and economic leaders of the civic society. At the same time, one should not ignore the fact that the spectrum of possible actors in such a dialogue is variegated, that its participants may bring in and convey various interests, ambitions, subjects and demands. One of the substantive prerequisites of an efficient dialogue is what can generally be characterized as adequate competence of all the participants in such a dialogue. While considering absolutely general principles of such a dialogue, we come to discover qualities like will, intent, aspiration and need to conduct such a dialogue ranking among them. One of the

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leading pioneers of the research into the social status and social function of science, or rather changes typical of this function throughout this century and especially in its second half, D. de Solla Price (1977) characterized these changes as a great upsurge of the „extrinsic function of science", i.e. social, economic, political and also military or defence-related functions of science. (The latter aspect is bound up with the situation prevailing in the latter half of the 20th century, with World War II having turned not only into a spate of local wars but also into the Cold War and the general competition in all the spheres of science and technology.) Under these changing social, economic as well as political circumstances, the research and development sector has grown to become a „public affair" in the full sense of the term, i.e. the subject of interest of not only political and governmental bodies but virtually most citizens. This has given rise to various state-run as well as public boards and associations, bodies, departments and ministries and also various special-interest groups which dealt with the issues of stimulation and direction of research and development activities, appraisal of the results of such activities, including assessment of anticipated risks associated with their potential applications. This field of problems has also become the subject of theoretical reflection of wide-ranging socio-economic research projects. Major milestones in these new trends were accents placed on the role of decisionmaking processes in research and development and, within these contexts, also on the criteria of choice (a groundbreaking work in this respect was the study by A. Weinberg 1963) and accentuation of the global contexts of research and development in the social conditions of the second half of the 20th century, developed for the first time - after euphoria had died down over the accomplishments of science - especially in the OECD study known as the „Brooks Report" (Science... 1971). Under these changing social and value-related circumstances, a substantial portion of the scientific community has come to realize, more acutely than ever before, that its activities, which have been extended not only in terms of scope and thematic orientation and which have become professional to a certain extent, can no longer keep on developing in some kind of „splendid isolation" in the shadows of laboratories separated and isolated from the hustle and bustle and also disturbing noises of everyday life or - as has been figuratively put it - in the fictitious „ivory tower". A scientist does and should have the right to protect the freedom of his investigation which often amounts to an exhausting quest offering uncertain results and no guarantees of a desirable outcome. A creative scientist in the research and development sector at the end of the 20th century is, therefore, entitled to protect the freedom of research and defend his or her standpoints but he or she can hardly afford to remain indifferent to the topics, requirements and stimuli arising in an open, pluralistic and well-informed society. Some of the creative scientists in research and development have, however, had an opportunity of experiencing personally the restrictions of freedom under totalitarian systems, subjugation of science to the ruling ideology, application of what was called the „service complex" when - under the slogans of science „serving the people" - the actual main purpose was to subordinate science to the goals and ambitions of monopoly power. Having said that a creative research and development scientist cannot remain indifferent to the topics and initiatives coming from a civic society, this certainly has nothing to do with what we have called the „service complex" under totalitarian regimes. At the same time, each scientist is entitled to appraise all the topics, ambitions and initiatives, whatever sections of society they may come from, with due consideration and evaluation of all the broader contexts of such topics.

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If and when an active member of the scientific community, or as is often put nowadays, research community, does not live and work utterly isolated from the events, problems and disputes rife in that society, then also an overwhelming majority of citizens, at least in advanced countries, cannot live and work isolated from science and its applications. These are primarily technical applications, technical works or the realm of technical artefacts, which not only constitute „a second nature", but accompany the late 20th century man throughout his life, in his work and leisure, opening up to him new areas of self-realization. Over the past few decades this has applied, among other factors, to the enormous upsurge of information technologies, the mass media, processes known as the „information explosion". Naturally, it is impossible to ignore the fact that these far-reaching changes of the global environment carry not only positive aspects but also conceal many negative phenomena, greater risks. All this has not only changed or is still changing attitudes some citizens assume to the world of science and technology, it has been instrumental in generating feelings of apprehension, disenchantment, loss of many illusions, even with people who use the accomplishments of contemporary technology on a large scale. As a result, citizens in the most advanced countries are better informed, tending to assume attitudes which are relevant to other possible orientations of science and technology even though these people are fully dependent on the hitherto realized orientations of the development of science and the application of its results. Precisely due to these reasons research communities can ill afford to assume indifferent or even condescending attitudes to those steps, which can be comprehensively termed as „civic initiatives". It is natural that all the possible initiatives, including those arising within research communities, must be analyzed and evaluated comprehensively, with a view given to broader contexts, to anticipated possible impacts, developmental trajectories and also other time horizons. But the scientist of the late 20th century has neither the intellectual nor the moral justification for his steps or attitudes to bear traces of the well-known verse by Horace: ,,0di profanum volgus et arceo." But an opposite of such an attitude is possible and equally harmful: pandering to fashionable slogans, various forms of what is called a populist policy, tolerating various forms of charlatanism, magic or waves of utterly irrational superstitions. It should not be forgotten that even the so-called active, informative or educative society of civilized countries of thé end of the 20th century failed to defend itself against those tendencies, promises of easy and simple fixes, miraculous therapies or analogous clamours by charlatans which can serve as present-day analogies of medieval incantation, exorcism or witch hunts. In a dialogue among members of a scientific community with different representatives of society, scientists cannot claim their infallibility and omniscience, they should not try to conceal that contemporary science is not in a position to solve all the problems, that even nowadays science can be mistaken in many cases, just as it has been many times in the past. It can only submit a higher level of certainty (as compared with what is sometimes comprehensively called „antiscience"), can prove that it has been faring well, in spite of numerous difficulties and possible risks. After all, it was Voltaire who remarked that only charlatans are certain of anything.

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2. Terms of dialogue The term „dialogue", with its Greek etymology, implies that the designated process should be directed from one participant to another participant or other participants. This amounts to a process of communication involving a minimum of two or more participants while all of them have the right as well as the possibility of actively participating in the process, including various forms of response, reply, acceptance or rejection of the opportunity of presenting other views, attitudes or standpoints. What can figuratively be called „dialogue between science and society" is certainly marked by numerous specific features, characteristics and requirements but it must invariably take into account some general conditions and assumptions. These general terms become evident from the very questions, which have the nature of rhetoric queries: Can we debate anything with anybody? Can we conduct a dialogue with someone who does not wish or who basically rejects to do so? The evidently negative answers to those questions imply that there are always certain semiotic, social and probably also value-related prerequisites of any efficient dialogue. Semiotic prerequisites of a dialogue are associated with the fact that any dialogue is a form of communication or transfer of information, which is possible only when identical and identically interpretable sign systems, i.e. language systems, information channels and sufficient linguistic competence of the participants in a given dialogue, are available to all its actors. But this is far from being a sufficient precondition for an efficient dialogue unless other semiotic prerequisites have been met, i.e. a semiotic extension of the term „linguistic competence", prerequisites of comprehension and identical interpretation, sufficient coherence or overlap of what is traditionally called the „universum of discourse" and an adequate level of knowledge of this universe. It would probably be possible to consider a certain „parallelism of competences" of the participants in a dialogue. (An attempt at offering an overview of the semiotic prerequisites of dialogue was made in Tondl 1995.) Figuratively speaking, an erudite physicist cannot conduct a dialogue relating to the issues of interpretation of the relationship of uncertainty in the quantum theory in physics with a first-former because numerous semiotic and knowledge preconditions have not been met. Answers to the questions of the type „who?", „whom with?" „what about?" pertaining to the possibilities of a dialogue are, therefore, conditioned by the prerequisites of the semiotic type, ie. prerequisites of efficient communication and forms of communication, sufficient competence of all the participants in communication, abilities of adequate interpretation, of understanding and knowing what is the subject of communication. The problems spelt out in the above-mentioned questions, however, have an almost direct bearing on some social prerequisites of a dialogue conducted between representatives of science and research on the one hand and those interested in their results who are willing to support them in their research activities, who are involved in the utilization of some real or anticipated results. It would probably be a mere simplification to assume that science presents its results in the shape of a monologue, as statements, publications, findings which can only be read and appraised (usually by other members of the scientific community), used in educational work, adult education or popularization. There has always been something having the nature of interests, requirements, needs, there has always been both the will and necessity not only to accept the results of science and research but also to assess, criticize

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and reject them, hence a will to conduct a dialogue. It is natural that the spectrum of people who are or can be partners in this dialogue is very variegated and diversified, and in advanced countries it presumably encompasses virtually all the sections of society and all spheres of social life. Partners in such a dialogue are political representatives, people interested in innovations in all walks of social life. That research and development are the main source of innovation as well as that of criteria for an efficient selection, choice and assessment and possible reception of innovations tends to have its impact on the fact that actually all the sections of society come into direct or mediated contact with the results of research and development. Understandably enough, forms of these contacts can hardly be reduced to mere information links and communication processes. Mounting importance of information links, and hence of direct contacts between the research and development sector on the one hand and various socio-political, economic and cultural spheres on the other, is also determined by the reduction of the directive and hierarchically organized decisionmaking. A democratic, open and therefore pluralistic society does not aspire to decide, i.e. to choose from alternative solutions of various problem situations on the strength of a single pattern of values, criteria or priorities in all the spheres or sectors of social life. It was the well-known Brooks Report (Science... 1971) which highlighted the advantages of the pluralistic patterns in decision-making processes, in criteria and priority setting in various spheres and thus the multitude and diversity of links connecting research and scientific communities with various fields. The demise of the communist and totalitarian systems was accelerated, among other factors, also by their failure to respect such pluralistic patterns and thus to stop the growing scientific and technological gap in many spheres of research, development and its application and the weakening of direct stimulatory influences and mutual information contacts. (Needless to add perhaps, there were certain exceptions to the rule, with the centralized and command systems giving preference to selected research sectors, while other sections managed to attain decent standards thanks to great efforts of good research teams with longstanding traditions.) The plurality notion of information and other links existing between parts of the research and development sector and various areas and sections, however, does not rule out the needs and purposefulness of a certain process of coordinating these links, which can have different functions, roles and places of incorporation, which have a predominantly consultative and stimulating or coordinating role. An overview of these bodies or institutions that are generally accountable to governments, ministries or representative bodies, usually made up of independent and highly qualified experts, is given in an OECD study on priority setting in science and technology (Choosing... 1991). After all, it is typical that priority setting is mentioned more often than a universal, sole and utterly mandatory system (Steward 1995). At the same time, it is stressed that elaboration of such a system is a permanent process which can be focused on shorter and longer periods of time. Furthermore, any system of priorities should not be a brake or obstacle to creative initiatives originating outside accepted programmes, projects or sets of priorities. If a dialogue is a communication process whose participants meet certain semiotic and social conditions or prerequisites, then what can be called the start or entry into a dialogue also depends on some value-related prerequisites or conditions. The very entry into a dialogue is usually a value-conditioned decision, i.e. - for instance - manifestation of will, intent and appreciation of the importance of the dialogue in question and also a certain evaluation of a

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particular partner in the dialogue as a justified, qualified or competent partner. That is why, for example, officials of monopoly power in totalitarian regimes rejected dissidents' call „to open a dialogue with the power". Indeed, to accept such a dialogue would amount to recognizing the legitimacy of the opposition, which was practically possible only after the disintegration of the system of monopoly power. On the other hand, in democratic and plurality systems dialogue between different partners whose diversity of interests and ambitions is a matter-of-fact constitutes a substantial feature of the normal functioning of a democratic society. By recognizing a particular partner in a dialogue as a legitimate partner naturally does not provide a guarantee that the dialogue involved is bound to lead to results acceptable by all the partners, to a consensus or to what had been expected of it.

3. The start and goals of dialogue If a dialogue can be specified by several key features that may, in the barest outline, be summed up in the answer to the questions of the type „who", „whom with", „what about", „how", then the answer to the first pair of queries serve to characterize partners in a dialogue. But it is insufficient to be a potential partner in a dialogue, potential partners should decide to enter into a mutual dialogue or at least to stimulate it. Such a stimulus may come in the shape of an appearance of some of the partners, which is designed as a stimulation, theme, requirement etc., hence a performance directly or indirectly inviting certain responses. As far as members of a research community are concerned, a stimulus for dialogue may sometimes be a suitable presentation of a new finding, discovery, its potential applications or rather benefits and advantages of these applications or also risks connected with possible applications. In this context, special mention should be made of one major circumstance. A prerequisite for an efficient dialogue between members or representatives of a research community on the one hand and various sections of society outside the research sphere on the other is a dialogue conducted by authors of a new finding, a novel solution of a given problem situation, new knowledge etc. and other members of the same or other research communities. There is always an inomissible coherence between cognitive processes and communication ones. One should likewise never ignore that significant point that an overwhelming majority of the results of cognitive activities in science and research, and quite certainly in basic research, is presented with the prospect that recipients or consumers of these results are predominantly other scientists and researchers in the given branch or in those other disciplines to which such results turn out to be interesting or important. (While encountering in the Czech Republic some rebukes levelled at scientists, which usually come from some writers, journalists or popularizing reviewers claiming that these results are not sufficiently comprehensible, that they do not say clearly and unequivocally what is to be undertaken with these results, that various alternatives are presented, these exhortations are, in actual fact, a profound misunderstanding of the spirit of research activity or an utterly unjustified identification of this activity with current affairs journalism.) It is, therefore, vital to distinguish forms of presentation of the results of science and research, which are intended for the

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scientific community and forms which have other addressees. This does not concern only the traditional process of popularizing the results of science but also those forms which are addressed to certainly qualified recipients, future scientists, people interested in using some of its results, specialists involved in their potential applications etc. But members of the research community, scientific teams or groups of scientists sharing similar views or interests are fully entitled to expressing their views, standpoints, attitudes to topical and potential situations and also, primarily, to the paths, advantages and risks of possible applications of research and development, spelling them out in a way to render these opinions or attitudes comprehensible to the well-qualified and mainly responsible members of the civic society. It may sometimes be expedient to combine different research activities so that they could result in that form of summarizing opinions, standpoints or general attitudes. Very often such a summary of opinions or attitudes assumes the shape of a serious warning against certain risks, against dangerous paths, which the application of research and development may take. Such was the nature of some of the appeals, contained in documents drawn up by members of the Club of Rome in the past. Neither to be underestimated is the importance of proclamations whereby scientists join forces with groups of other intellectuals, artists and cultural workers, as illustrated by a proclamation entitled „Two Thousand Words" in former Czechoslovakia during the short-lived period of what has come to be known as the Prague Spring. Naturally enough, some of those proclamations, either in terms of contents or overall tenor, tend to be controversial, particularly so because they sometimes put across marginal views, spelling out the opinions of just one section of scientists and other intellectuals. Another thing is that some of these statements cover scientists and other intellectuals. Another thing is that some of these statements cover not only matters of science, research, their results, possible applications and abuse of those applications but also general socio-political and general civic themes. After all, it is true that those whom we may characterize as members of a scientific community are just ordinary citizens. (Nothing can be changed by claiming that in some thematic areas these people may be better informed than ordinary citizens and that as citizens they enjoy no greater privileges and in general matters bear the same amount of civic responsibility.) Scientists and researchers are in a position to come up with themes, recommendations, warnings and other initiatives leading to the start of a dialogue with representatives of various social, economic and cultural spheres, virtually in all the fields which are associated with what D. de Solla Price (1977) described as the „extrinsic value" or „extrinsic function" of science, i.e. for instance, in various spheres of technological and innovation policy, education, culture, the environment etc. But in these areas, stimuli to launch a dialogue with specialists, an impetus to constitute teams of experts, scientific consultants and advisors or otherwise characterized specialist boards, usually made up of top-ranking experts, also come from society's political representation, officials from various sectors of the administration, different spheres of economic life, services or culture. Speaking of the stimuli of this type, it is necessary to impose a major limitation. Initiatives, stimuli and requirements, especially requests for the application of the advisory, consultative and also warning function of science may be meaningful and fully practicable only under the conditions of a free, pluralistic and democratic society. In the past, members of monopoly power in totalitarian regimes also invited experts for consultations.

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But before then, the former made sure to turn some of the latter into „scientific clerks", obedient yesmen under their own influence. This was so because holders of monopoly power virtually decided about the latter's appointments to top posts in scientific hierarchy. It should also be stressed that the monopoly of power can easily lapse into becoming a „monopoly of truth" or a „monopoly of reason". (Dozens of cases could be quoted showing that totalitarian systems had actually asked teams of experts just for a kind of „scientific sanctioning" of projects that had already been decided, ventures which often imitated the megalomaniac projects and investments made in the former Soviet Union and which were focused on the so called incremental innovations, thus multiplying the existing energy- and material-intensive capacities usually accused of having pernicious impacts on the environment.) The most frequent social requirement placed on consultative, advisory or expert teams was a call to assess new, considered or - under the given circumstances and with the available capacities practicable alternatives of the solution of a problem situation in hand. Viewed in these contexts, it is expedient to recapitulate some of the key principles usually given for the work of specialist boards, expert groups or ad hoc commissions: -

It is necessary to insist on considering the problem in hand in variant solutions, it is vital to take into account more alternatives (one of which is the decision not to tackle the given problem situation at all and preserve the existing status).

-

Most problem situations which are to be analyzed and whose possible solutions are to be assessed are quite comprehensive in character and fall into the competence of many different branches. This introduces the need of setting up an interdisciplinary board to analyze and evaluate such a situation.

-

An appropriate specialist board, an advisory, consultative or expert team shall be sufficiently competent if made up of top specialists. In addition to high qualification, erudition or scientific prestige, high moral standards coupled with an awareness of personal and social responsibility are justifiably requested.

- If high professional as well as civic standards are requested, an adequate command of all major problems, an ability to transcend the narrow horizons of one's own branch, to perceive issues in broader contexts, including temporal-spatial ones complete with an assessment of the „human dimensions" of the given theme, is needed. (It is also due to these reasons that experts in the humanities are being invited to work in most of these expert teams.) -

A competent team of experts can function satisfactorily only if sufficiently independent. (Since independent teams cannot be made responsible for their recommendations in absolute and administrative terms, they are, in some countries, given only an advisory role, the task of formulating qualified recommendations or preferred arrangements of considered variants. Final decision-making remains in the hands of relevant legislative bodies or administration, while the considerable authority and professional prestige of the team of experts are usually respected.)

It might be useful to list the most typical thematic fields in which, and this applies primarily to the most advanced countries, expert teams are requested to supply their standpoints, recommendations or opinions. One of the first typical spheres where such standpoints are traditionally requested is the field of assessing considered technical solutions, investments or major technological changes, evaluating

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their potential or anticipated risks („technology assessment", „risk assessment"). Another typical sphere where a comprehensive interdisciplinary appraisal is deemed to be a legitimate part is the field of creating and protecting the living environment („environmental impact assessment"), which is, however, closely connected with the previous sphere. Standpoints elaborated by teams of experts in an interdisciplinary manner are often sought before launching new production programmes, new technologies or new managerial or decision-making procedures, i.e. processes requiring coparticipation of the human actor in such or analogous procedures. (The terms, such as „anthropocentric production", a „human friendly technology", an „ergonometric assessment" of the given procedures, are sometimes encountered in this respect.) Of great importance for the work of interdisciplinary teams of experts under these and similar circumstances is the following principle: If specialists from various branches are ever to communicate efficiently with representatives of different social sectors, then they must, first and foremost, be able to communicate efficiently among themselves, they should understand, respect and recognize one another, at least in key issues. In actual fact, this constitutes an independent problem area in its own right, which is sometimes described as the methodology of interdisciplinary communication and cooperation. Interdisciplinary communication, mutual respect, recognition of partner's importance when viewed from a different angle: i.e. from the position of another discipline, are - as a matter of fact - very important even for the internal life of a scientific community. There looms a constant danger that many specialists are outright captives of their own disciplines, of their knowledge and also of the degree of competence or certainties this knowledge provides to them. Many scientists still appear to be unable to shed what is sometimes characterized as „scientific departmentalism", they seem to be unable to take steps leading to what is traditionally described as „transcending the horizons" of one's own branch. As for the start of a dialogue among specialists of various branches and a dialogue among members of a scientific community, research groups and teams on the one hand and various sections of the civic society (including its political representation), the specification of the goals to be pursued by such a dialogue is invariably of great importance. Very often scientists, their institutions and especially interdisciplinary teams are called upon to provide consultations to

people seeking an optimum

solution to a given problem situation, evaluation of different variants of technical solutions, their advantages and shortcomings or risks. In such assignments, it is usually inevitable to work with a greater number of criteria, to take into consideration various levels of significance or rate of relevance of these criteria in view of the given problem situation. In these contexts, it is impossible to determine the importance of various criteria in comprehensive, multicriterial evaluation or decision-making in an arbitrary manner, based on individual preferences. That is why in the tasks of this type, great significance is ascribed to a suitable methodology of multicriterial assessment. (An overview of some of the formal instruments used in calculating the rate of relevance of individual criteria in multicriterial assessment is presented in Tondl 1992.) Another major objective of mutual consultations and discussions based on different and differently oriented standpoints is the creation of a justified preferential arrangement of research and development projects. The latter half of the 20th century has seen not only an upsurge of research and development

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activities but also the advent of the principle of competitiveness and the necessity of suitable selection in research and development projects. As a matter of fact, preferential arrangement is expected to reflect not only the very needs of the science and research sector but also the justified demands, needs or requirements of a society or rather of the various social spheres, groups or some major thematic fields. (Such major thematic fields include, quite undoubtedly, the sector of health care and the sound development of the human species, the sphere of creating and protecting the environment, the field of culture and the preservation of cultural values, education and upbringing, encompassing not only a sufficient knowledge orientation but also high moral and cultural standards of future generations. It would probably be possible to include other spheres belonging to mankind's permanent intellectual, cultural, and moral values.) The preferential arrangement of subjects or demands stemming from the afore-mentioned or some other thematic fields or the determination of the rate of relevance of the criteria conditioned by these wholes should be combined into a suitable process of coordinating various orientations and criteria, not with the backing of some at the detriment of others. A dialogue examining these problems is, therefore, always the „art of the feasible" and in that sense we can use analogous or metaphorical images operating with terms, such as „science policy", „innovation policy", „research policy", „health policy", etc. When commenting on the start and goals of dialogue in the light of the problems relating to the orientation and results of science, research and development and the trends of their application, one should not forget some subjective prerequisites either. It is almost a matter-of-course that in a free, open and pluralistic society, great respect is shown to the voices of leading lights in science, research teams and scientific institutions, people and authorities endowed with natural authority, a high level of prestige and a considerable degree of moral, scientific and civic responsibility. It is likewise natural that such values were hardly available to many „scientific clerks" who had, in the past, received from the totalitarian regimes top academic degrees and managerial posts within the hierarchy of scientific and research systems, especially in recognition of their political and ideological merits. (Just as in many other contexts, even under these conditions a warning should be sounded against easy and cheap generalizations.) Even nowadays there are cases, which can either be regarded as a heritage of the totalitarian past or as resulting from personal defects, whereby citizens and scientists too tend to exploit their positions for manifestations reminiscent of the arrogant and self-complacent behaviour infamous from the times of the „infallible" totalitarian system. Representatives of the science, research and development sector who work on expert boards and panels safeguarding communication and dialogue with various sections of a civic society and its political representation are justifiably requested to meet some important prerequisites. These prerequisites include the following: -

a high level of professional competence coupled with a certain command of problems, ie. an understanding of the broader contexts of one's own branch interlinking it both with other disciplines and also with possible spheres of reception or application,

-

an ability to understand and appreciate a given problem situation, anticipated objectives of its solution, alternatives of such a solution in a way to grasp not only positive features but also

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negative ones and risks, and not only under current circumstances but especially in longer time perspectives. If it is possible to lay certain claims to those partners in a dialogue who represent science, scientific community and particularly the high level of scientific competence, then the fulfilment of some prerequisites can be requested from other partners in a dialogue who represent civic interests and requirements, or themes and demands championed by some sections of society, special interest groups. It should, however, be noted that as a rule, members of scientific communities cannot choose their partners in a dialogue from various sections of society outside the research and development sector, and neither can they make claims as to their quality. But that is a matter for a democratic society to solve, for civic forms of control and the society's prevailing intellectual and moral climate. Naturally, such a climate can hardly be enforced or imposed through a mere political or legal act. Experience accumulated by the countries which have suffered long periods of totalitarian rule or which have had no worthwhile democratic traditions of their own shows that the shaping of a such a climate, an atmosphere which poses great claims on the intellectual and moral norms not only of its political representation but also of the inner social and human relations within society, is a challenging and probably very long-term affair.

4.

Initiatives

The structure of themes on which it is deemed desirable to conduct a dialogue between scientists, specialists, experts and interdisciplinary teams, created ad hoc or to tackle a specific problem area, on the one hand and various spheres of social life on the other is relatively wide and highly varied. Traditionally, this covers major investments, not only in the techno-economic spheres, bus also in the service, cultural, research and educational sectors. The subject of a dialogue is a spectrum of possible or anticipated impacts, usually in a long-term perspective. (While in the past attention was paid solely to positive and negative features, costs and benefits, presented in economic terms, ie. the so-called economic cost-effectiveness of investments or otherwise characterized input-output ratio examined in a short term view, this is actually only a partial and often misleading component of such analyses, evaluations and decisions.) The topics which are made subjects of consultations, meetings, negotiations and assessment, and hence of a dialogue conducted by involved groups, organizations or institutions and expert teams, are characterized by an expansion of the sphere of criteria which should be respected. An addition to the traditional techno-economic criteria is the complex of criteria which can be comprehensively described as human-related. These include health criteria, criteria stemming from the possibilities of the human psychic, intellectual and somatic capacities and hence respecting an ordinary distribution of these capacities. In most themes which are connected with technical, economic and social changes it is vital to consider criteria associated with the environment conceived in the broadest sense of the term. Usually, such a term is assumed to designate primarily the living environment, nature conservation. In fact, no less important are considerations regarding a social, cultural and moral environment. (As a result, cultural and moral ecologies do exist.)

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Of great importance for the start of a dialogue, whether its goals, in terms of themes, pertain to whatever social, economic, technical and cultural sphere, which also encompasses research, educational systems, school systems and their orientation, is what can be characterized as initiatives. In these contexts too a broad spectrum of initiatives should be anticipated. There are known scientific, research and development initiatives whose authors need not be only members of a scientific community. The past few decades have brought about a genuine upsurge of initiatives described as civic. The totalitarian systems of the recent past actually feared initiatives and that was why the only permissible initiatives were those coming from the highest echelons of the top-ranking hierarchy of this monopoly power. It was the well-known sociologist P A. Sorokin who, after being driven away from bolshevik Russia, expressed his fear that Europe was threatened with the danger of constituting systems proving the worth of the tenet „Benedictum quid venit in nomine Domini", ie. good and admissible is what comes from the top of monopoly power. A democratic society has opened up a vast ground for the origin and application of initiatives. But this does not imply that all initiatives can stimulate a respectable and serious dialogue among competent citizens. That is why certain boundaries are needed which should - while in no way restraining initiatives - put at least the substantial ones into certain cultured and adequate forms, safeguarding a level of sophistication of such a dialogue. Naturally, the level of sophistication of a dialogue has nothing to do with clamours in the streets, threats to those who dare to have a different view etc. Neither has the degree of sophistication of a dialogue anything in common with what are called scientific or philosophical disputes, which are presented to the uninitiated readers of the daily press or listeners to the mass media. This is so not only because such disputes are often simplified or distorted but also because most readers are not fully versed in the merits of the divergent views. (It does not inevitably imply that a civic society cannot be informed about different views, attitudes and standpoints, but usually it is not and cannot be an arbiter of those disputes.) It is therefore evident that only some initiatives, especially those which are aimed at clear-cut and well-defined goals, can stimulate fruitful discussions. Even under such circumstances it is true that there are no a priori guarantees that these discussions and dialogues should be productive, that an optimum solution shall be found, consensus of all the participants in the dialogue shall be accomplished.

5. Forais of dialogue Any intercourse between persons with different knowledge orientations, with different competences, with substantially divergent grasp of specialized terminology is quite naturally difficult, being accompanied by numerous obstacles. Furthermore, it is true that such different people usually have different interests, that they tend to associate the dialogue of this type with very different expectations. This gives rise to the well-known issue of finding a „common language" or - to put it in terms of semiotics - the problem of securing a sufficient overlap of the „universum of discourse" among all the participants in the particular dialogue. These circumstances should be taken into account when specifying the themes of a dialogue, selecting its participants and also when organizing and running it.

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As a matter of fact, similar problems and difficulties are known to arise when organizing what are known as panel discussions or at interdisciplinary working meetings. While seeking forms of a dialogue pertaining to a common area of interest among persons with different eruditions, with a different depth of insight into that branch, the paramount requirement to be imposed is the transparency of the subjects to be discussed, i.e. not only a sufficient level of general understandability for diversely erudite specialists but also a selection of the substantive core of the themes or places where different opinions, different value attitudes etc. can meet and compete. (A detailed elaboration and explanation of the principle of transparency in science and technology policy was given by J.-J. Salomon at the session of the International Council for Science Policy Studies in Paris in November 1994. ) An important element and factor affecting the form of a dialogue conducted by specialists of different orientations is a sufficient level of correspondence among all the participants on the dialogue's objective. This objective need not necessarily always be the search for an optimum solution to the given problem situation, attainment of consensus about that solution, preferential arrangement of possible alternatives etc. One should not even deny the viability of a dialogue whose goal is to map out major characteristics of a problem situation, to obtain an overview of existing alternatives, considered standpoints or attitudes held by different participants in a dialogue. It can also take the shape of a preliminary hearing before another dialogue whose participants need not be identical with those involved in the preliminary one. This also confirms that the specification of form, conception and system of goals of a dialogue in the given contexts is a complex matter. (To all probability, equally time-consuming and exhausting are some dialogues in political life and on political issues.) The composition of an expert board or panel, team of experts, advisory body or commissions etc. appointed for a given or temporary situation as well as suitable forms of a dialogue are not and cannot be fixed by using a unified pattern. It depends on the goals in the topics themselves. During negotiations concerning, for instance, future trends in research and development, concept of evaluating university education, it is regarded as matter of course that members of such boards or panels of experts are leading scientists from universities and major research centres who meet the abovementioned subjective prerequisites. Under these circumstances, it is vital for such people to represent at least the most significant groups of experts. It is virtually impossible to have all the thematic groups represented. (Representation of the entire present-day thematic structure of science and research is neither possible nor expedient. The term „thematic structure" of contemporary science is discussed in Tondl (forthcoming). It should be noted here that the term „thematic structure", facilitating an understanding of the intricate web of inner links and interrelations of individual disciplines and branches reflects the current situation better than the traditional term „classification", implying disjunction of individual branches.) Much more complex and also much more demanding is the structure of analogous expert boards for the type of tasks concerning various social, economic and technical sectors in where one should count not only with the application of results of research and development activities but also with the system of criteria and values. As a rule, such an expert board or panel should also incorporate specialists who are not dazzled by the instant contribution of the given project but who are capable of

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assessing long-term perspectives, not only the origin and functioning but also further „life", „age" and „death" of the considered artefact, if we can use the so-called biological metaphors in this context. This is probably quite substantial in large-scale technical projects that are not conceived and designed as future Egyptian pyramids but rather as systems which do and can function only in a limited time interval. The shortening innovation cycles and accelerating rhythm of technical changes are instrumental in introducing a mode of reasoning, decision-making and assessment which takes into consideration limitations corresponding to the so-called biological metaphors. When setting up expert boards or panels of this type, what the civic society is mostly concerned with is whether its members could not enforce primarily their own interests, whether a clash of interest cannot arise in these contexts, whether members are not said to be sufficiently independent just because they are friends or former colleagues of the leading top state administrators or legislators. Probably of still greater significance is the issue of adequate competence and a clean sheet both in civic and moral terms. Naturally enough, all these aspects must be taken into account by those bodies or institutions which are to establish expert boards or panels. In parallel with their establishment, great importance is attached to the mode of dissemination, to forms of behaviour and decision-taking, to the mode of determining whether such decisions still have the nature of recommendations (and highly qualified and prestigious recommendations at that) or of final decisions. In conclusion, a serious cautionary note or rather a warning should be sounded. Even the best conceived dialogue or expert board or panel, made up of highly competent and wise men, will not provide an a priori guarantee that the very best recommendation shall be spelt out, an optimum variant of all possible solutions shall be found etc. The reason is quite simple: Just as scientific truth is not guaranteed by a consonant decision made by an expert board or panel which is currently regarded as sufficiently authoritative (for this particular idea the author of this study had been criticized and harrassed by communist ideologues as early as in the 1950s), the present-day quest for an optimum solution or most suitable recommendation cannot provide such guarantees either. One could add that man's creative intellect is not infallible and even nowadays it lacks the quality of additivity, cannot be added up. What is particularly important is precisely the openness and transparency of this activity. References Choosing Priorities in Science and Technology (1991), Paris: OECD. Price, D. de Solla (1977), An Extrinsic Value Theory for Basic and Applied Research. In: J. Haberer (ed), Science and Technology Policy, Heath and Co., Mass. Salomon, J.-J. (1994), Transparence of the Technological Institutions and Democracy. Contributions at the meeting of „International Council for Science Policy Studies", Paris, November 25-26,1994. Science, Growth and Society: A New Perspective (1971), Paris: OECD. Steward, J. (1995), Models of Priority-Setting for Public Sector Research. In: Research Policy 24, 115-126. Tondl, L. (1992), Socialni hodnoceni techniky [Technology Assessment], Plzeft: Ediini stfedisko Zapadoceske university. Tondl, L. (1995), Kultura dialogu a formy monologu [The Culture of Dialogue and Forms of Monologue. A Semantic Study], In: Slovo a slovesnost, 56, 161-172. Tondl, L. (1996), Mezi epistemologii a semiotikou (Deset studii o vztazich poznini a porozumSni vyznamu) [Between Epistemology and Semiotics (Ten Studies on the Relations Between Knowledge and Understanding Meaning)], Praha: Filosofia Publishers. Weinberg, A.M. (1963), Criteria for Scientific Choice. In: Minerva 1, No. 2.

Rema Rossini

Favretti

Dialogue in Scientific Discourse

1. Introduction 2. Reading as a dialogic process 3. Interpretation and the construction of knowledge 4. The „self' and „the other" in the dialogic organization of scientific discourse 5. Research articles: a case study 6. The role of dialogue in the construction of the past 7. Conclusions Notes References

1. Introduction In this paper I intend to investigate the dialogic organization of scientific communication. In the latest years, insights from rhetoric, especially epistemologic rhetoric, and hermeneutics have created an increasing interest in scientific communication and in the rhetorical organization of scientific texts. Moreover, the challenges brought to the linear models of communication by post-structuralism have contributed to shedding light on the processes through which ideas are communicated within scientific communities and to bring to the fore the roles played both by the writer and the reader in the construction and interpretation of a text. We are confronted with a new interest in the subjects of the communicative process and in the practices through which scientific and discourse communities interpret and arrange their collective being. The writer and the reader are both seen as engaged in a single signifying process and as active participants within a scientific community where a similarity of discursive practices is presupposed; the writer is seen as inseparable from the world he represents and projects, and the reader is discussed not as a passive decoder of the writer's messages, but as an interlocutor who needs to understand them, and, what is more, to interpret them. These issues are exemplified in a major debate taking place within the field of economics, where emphasis has been placed on economics as discourse (Klamer, McCloskey) and on the actual practices through which a meaning is worked out of a text by the reader's interaction with it. A number of arguments have been advanced to motivate the crucial role played by persuasion and the rejection of traditional epistemology in favour of rhetoric and discourse analysis. My focus will be on the interaction established by the writer and the reader through the text and on the role of dialogic processes both in the interpretation of the text and in the construction of knowledge.

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2. Reading as a dialogic process The use of the word „dialogic" may be somewhat misleading if we try to interpret it against the conceptual framework used to discuss spoken conversation. No parallelism between written and spoken discourse is suggested. It is obvious that in written discourse we cannot find the simultaneity of interaction that is strictly linked to the presence of a speaker and a hearer at a specific time and place. Reading a text and constructing its meaning is never the same as hearing someone and listening to his/her speech, in oral discourse. As Ricoeur argued: 1 ...Dialogue is an exchange of questions and answers; there is no exchange of this sort between the writer and the reader. The writer does not respond to the reader. Rather, the book divides the act of writing and the act of reading into two sides, between which there is no communication. The reader is absent from the act of writing; the writer is absent from the act of reading (1981, 146).

Yet, as Ricoeur elucidated, even in the asymmetrical relationship established between the text and its reader, a text can be restored as „a living communication" in which the reader „interprets it", rediscovering the meanings that were captured and fixed in it (Ricoeur 1981, 152). The concept of dialogue can be extended to include the interaction required to understand what the author has to say to us about a topic of common concern. Important contributions in this direction have come from the hermeneutic approach, or „the interpretive turn", as Rorty named this school of thought which is highly influential in American culture and was highly influenced by European intellectual tradition, especially by the translations of Husserl's, Gadamer's and Ricoeur's works. Communication and understanding are main themes of the hermeneutic approach, and the spontaneous interaction characterizing spoken conversation is often seen as exemplificatory of successful reading. In a number of studies, the appropriate approach to a written text is presented as similar to the approach to a living interlocutor, who, through interpretation, actualizes the text and conjoins a new discourse to the discourse of the text. In this sense, „interpretation" is paralleled to the appropriation here and now of the intention of a text. In a wider, more extensive approach, we can refer to the theoretical apparatus developed by Hans-Georg Gadamer. In Gadamer's perspective, conversation provides a model for the confrontation between a reader and a text. In his words: In human relationships the important thing is, as we have seen, to experience the 'Thou' truly as a 'Thou', i.e., not to overlook his claim and to listen to what he has to say to us. To this end, openness is necessary. But this openness exists ultimately not only for the person to whom one listens, but rather anyone who listens is fundamentally open. Without this kind of openness to one another there is no genuine human relationship. Belonging together always means being able to listen to one another (1982, 324).

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Under this picture two interpretive situations are envisaged in scientific communication. On the one hand, the analogy of conversation shows the way to an interpretive approach to the text, on the other, it sheds light on the interaction and intercommunication involved in the research process and it puts into focus the role played by discourse in the construction of knowledge.

3. Interpretation and the construction of knowledge Recent trends in linguistics, philosophical hermeneutics and rhetoric have contributed to highlighting and investigating the role played by language in the construction and representation of actions, things and events. M. A. K. Halliday has argued that „Every language functions for its speakers both to construe experience and to enact interpersonal relations" (1993b, 1). In his studies he has shown how grammar is an essential element in theorizing human experience. Each happening is deconstrued into constituent elements by grammatical categories, which evolve in the semiotic transformation of experience. In discourse analysis, attention has been called to the socially constructive role of writing and to the role of language as a cognitive and socially constructive phenomenon. It is widely recognized that discourse constitutes objects while describing them. In different fields we are confronted with a common focus on the function of language not only as representing reality but rather as constructing it. It is widely recognized that discourse constitutes objects while describing them and that objects are constituted differently in different discourses. As was stated by Bazerman and Paradis: Writing structures our relations with others and organises our perceptions of the world. By studying texts within their contexts, we study as well the dynamics of context building. In particular, by understanding texts within the professions, we understand how the professions constitute themselves and cany out their work through texts (1991, 3).

Against such analytical framework, knowledge results essentially socially constructed through the interchange of experience; a scientific community comes to coincide with a discourse community that constitutes its own scientific object and constructs the criteria by which its results are assessed. Dialogue takes place within a commonly shared world of intersubjective meanings. What becomes of paramount importance is that the concepts and the claims advanced by a scientist be „in harmony" with the underlying assumptions, the beliefs and the opinions of the anticipated audience. In Durkheim's (1979, 439) words: It is not enough that (concepts) be true to be believed. If they are not in harmony with the other beliefs and opinions, or, in a word, with the mass of the other collective representations, they will be denied; minds will be closed to them; consequently it will be as though they did not exist.

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Addressing the „other's" view, the writer constructs the other's expectations laying down a commonly shared world. In other words, s/he represents his/her world in such a way that the „other" can enter into his/her world. The writer anticipates his/her readers and gives them constant clues to take part in the dialogic process that s/he intends to start.

4. The „self and the „other" in the dialogic organization of scientific discourse The definition of audience in written communication has been the concern of a number of studies. Some of the distinctions that have emerged, such as invoked/addressed or real/implied audience, have brought insights into the textual realizations of the author's intention and have foregrounded the diverse components of the communicative process. It is not my intention here to review the literature on this issue. My primary concern is, rather, to point out the peculiarity of the situation. In fact, a discursive situation is generated in which the discursive practices are located in a value system shared by the community of specialists. The shared contexts of languages and traditions provide a cultural network which allows people to communicate. As Gadamer maintained: Whoever wants to understand something already brings along something that anticipatorily joins him with what he wants to understand Only one who stands within a given science has questions posed for him. How much the problems, thought experiences, needs and hopes proper to an age also mirror the direction of interest of science and research is common knowledge for any historian of science" (1982, 136).

Beliefs are justified by an ongoing process and are guided by anticipations and projections. In several studies 2 it has been suggested that one of the main features of scientific discourse is persuasion. The scientists' practices include the presentation of their viewpoints to the members of their scientific community as knowledge is socially constructed through the interchange of experience. Scientific statements are consensual statements valid only within the community of observers and scientists that generate them. We live in an intellectual climate in which the reality of quarks and gravitational lenses is arguably a matter of persuasion; such a climate is a natural environment for the revival of rhetoric that has as its field of analysis the claims to knowledge that science makes (Gross 1990, 4).

It is my opinion that in such descriptions the construction of the „other" is not sufficiently focused nor is the interplay taking place between writer and reader. To quote Klamer (1988, 266), instead of the rhetorical situation, „which is that of an individual facing the audience" (the I-versus-them situation) it is important to refer to a „group of conversing people, a speech community,

or (the I-among-others

situation)".

Thinking in that way emphasizes the

intercommunication involved in the process of scientific inquiry as well as the between those who speak/write and those who listen/read.

interaction

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In this perspective, the dialogic organization of scientific discourse implies a constant reconstruction and representation of the „1" and of the „others" as active participants in the dialogic process and as collaborators in the process of inquiry.

5. Research articles: a case study To illustrate this point, reference will be made to some examples from a corpus, in a computerreadable form, of economics research articles (ERA) drawn from English journals (Cambridge Journal of Economics, The Economic Journal, Oxford Economic Papers, European Economic Review)} The corpus was sampled from a selection of journals issued in a period from 1990 to 1995 .4 English was chosen as the dominant language of international scientific communication. A corpus approach was followed according to the methods developed in corpus linguistics. Generally no new models or techniques are presented in this kind of papers, which contain a great part of the research done by economists. In Kuhnian terms, they may be seen as documents of normal science when discourse is an epistemic and constitutive means of the group's knowledge. Subjectivity is not at its best. Consider this example, randomly chosen from the corpus: (1)

The arms trade is often seen as having a number of potentially negative consequences: the arms purchased may be used against the supplier, as they were in the Gulf; may promote regional arms races and increase international insecurity; and may divert funds from development. This has led to various measures to monitor and control arms transfer [...]. However, apparently simple control regimes can have unexpected consequences because of the complicated ways in which the economic and security objectives of the agents interact (The Economic Journal, 1995, 105, p. 473).

The first significant point to emerge is that in the example the „others" are referred to, but are not explicitly represented. Their views, let us call them the „other" views, are constructed as rejoinders in an ongoing dialogue. They are represented as a part of a system of values and beliefs. Let us consider another example from the Cambridge Journal of Economics: (2)

There can hardly be a more universally or firmly held belief than that low or zero inflation is an essential or at least very important condition for high and sustained growth, and that its attainment should be a main aim of government economic policy. Hardly a day can pass without it being stated by someone in authority that the battle against inflation must at all costs be won (1993, 17, p. 79).

In the examples the „others" are not made explicit, even if they are constantly presupposed.

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If we extend our analysis to all the articles of the corpus and consider the occurrences of the second person pronoun „you", we see that they are extremely limited. The occurrences of first person pronouns, both singular and plural, are certainly higher:3 bal demand and act as Stackeiberg leaders. ement of W, the total portfolio size. Since Empirical results From the discussion above s of payment'. Given that initial taxonomy cropolicy cooperation. In this short paper the economy (Brosnan and Wilkinson, 1988). ure research. IV. CONCLUSIONS In this paper re negative; whereas for the latter choice HE ARMS CONTROL REGIME Calibration Although efficient as their capitalist counterparts. exact size of the double counting problem .' However, to balance the Shackleton view, (1990) in Gleeson, p. 73). At the same time onomy needs to be undertaken. In particular luation from those of the tariff. Finally, en in decline. Therefore to allow for this es an intertemporal utility function. This on the specific values of the parameters. tured goods had been rising up to 1431 and these political and practical difficulties, on to break down under these strains, then different eras of capitalist production. c provision of cash by the Central Bank, f discussion is as follows. In Section 2 lving in the Japanese car industry-which the prospective, safe narrow bank. Since 1 changes are now occurring although, as pments is not clear. On the one hand, as rily offer a zero nominal interest rate.

I I I I I I I I

We we we we we We we we we We we we we we we we we We we we we

abstract from illegal sales and assum are dealing with an overseas asset d began estimation with the following can then ask why people demand non- i do not seek to provide a comprehensi examine below the degree to which the have developed a formal model of the have the case of bl < o, b" > o and p have been able to obtain analytical r make use of a recently developed the may suggest that there has been a shi must reflect on how the market, when must be critical of whether mass sche need to understand clearly what the provide an overview of other influen should perhaps report the proportion take to be for recipient I at time o therefore turn to simulations with ca would expect devaluation to have help would suggest that the formal result would be likely to see a demonstrati

base what follows on the belief that just claim that this feature is not technicall introduce briefly the concept of labour p now turn, paying particular attention to perceive that as the essence of banking, shall argue below, these will be mediated tried to show earlier, the JIT labour pro wish to examine a world in which all mone

ed on aggregate data which do not allow us adequately to assess the effect of traini e into some object of value. This leads us to consider exactly how the determination

The citations suggest that the „others" are not made explicit, even if they are constantly presupposed and reference is made to their knowledge and expectations. This procedure can be easily identified considering the functions of directives. Directives are analysed by Lyons (1977, 827) as utterances in which the deontic necessity typically proceeds from some source or cause. They are seen as „necessarily addressed to other agents", or addressees, who must acknowledge the speaker/writer's authority to impose his will upon them. Another point of interest relates to the occurrence of „must", „need" and „should" with first person or impersonal pronouns. The point is illustrated by the short concordance below: our relationship with our boss, how we ed help most' (DHSS, 1985B, p. 32). It be entirely 'firm specific' and there o reduce inventories substantially. It ending protection-that social insurance market. The future of social insurance view that markets with dominant firms activity. Third, and more generally, it is shown in Figure 4. At the outset it erns and working times. Nevertheless it the argument made above, that mergers costs. From the preceding discussion it

should should should should should should should should should should should should

act in a restaurant, how we conduct also be remembered that for the unem always be some scope for joint invest be borne in mind for later discussio be replaced altogether by a universa be carefully considered in this rega be scrutinised with particular care, be recognised that policy cooperatio be emphasized that while the index i be borne in mind that progress in mos be viewed more sympathetically in ma be evident that the economic assessm

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Discourse

social and legal rights. The following nefit approach are less simple, but it rid debt and Eastern Europe. Fifth, it decline. Therefore to allow for this we between bearer and inscribed bonds. Why tion and competitive market structures

should should should should should should

be the basic aims of regulation in t not be thought that structural remedi not be forgotten that the most effect perhaps report the proportion of ind there be such a distinction for bank thus be defended, because the benefit

It has been stated that authority relationships are contrary to norms and conventions underlying scientific activity. „Scientists are supposed to advise and criticize but not to command each other" (Crane 1972, 14). The extracts above illustrate the force of the advice and the directions, both in the case there is no direct reference to the reader and in the case s/he is represented by an inclusive first person plural „we", his/her role in reading is imagined and played by the writer himself/herself. This is an important point. The representations of the „other" tends to merge with the representation of the „self'. The readers tend to be represented through their attitudes, beliefs, and reactions and their attitudes, beliefs and reactions are generally represented as a background knowledge, with which both the writer and the reader are presumed to be already familiar or, better, as a commonly shared world of intersubjective meanings within which actions, things and situations are defined. On the one hand, this commonly shared world enables individuals to understand both themselves and the „others" as represented in discourse. On the other, it leads to an identification between the „writer" and the „readers". This has been seen as self-projection in an inner dialogue; or as W. Ong has said, a creation of the writer's mind. Through the readers' representation, the writer takes on different readers' roles in the evolving of the text and establishes a communicative process which takes place both outside and inside himself. These practices, as we have seen, bring about an identification between the „self' and the „others" which is grounded on shared knowledge. Researchers situate what they do, and what they say they do, in networks of interrelationships and associations that are not necessarily specified in their origins or made explicit.

6. The role of dialogue in the construction of the past Two different discourse situations emerge. In the former, shared knowledge is presupposed and interlocutors are implicit. Their discourse is embedded within the community's discourse and practices. In the latter, the „other" presence is explicitly stated when it is emphasized and no identification between the „self and the „other" is suggested or presupposed. We can argue that the „other" is explicitly referred to and cited when he receives credit as an authoritative member of a scientific community. Through citations, the writer explicitly interacts with the other and foregrounds his work as antecedent. While citing, the writer has the capacity to include or exclude previous researchers from his/her scientific activity; s/he has the capacity to accept the others as antecedents:

Rema Rossini Favretti

218 (3)

The model in this paper combines elements from two earlier papers, Levin, Sen and Smith (1994) (LSS) and Levin and Smith (1993) (LS). LSS emphasises supplier behaviour and describes the market and national arms regulation regimes; LS emphasises recipient behaviour and reviews arms races (The Economic Journal, 1995, 105, p. 474).

(4)

If the policies of deregulation and privatisation are to be evaluated adequately, in the ports or in any other sector of the economy, then as Fine (1990, pp. 138-141) argues, the framework of analysis must be historically grounded and incorporate broader social influences [...]. This implies a rejection of the neoclassical competitive paradigm and a recognition of the dynamic role the state can play in guiding capitalist accumulation (Cambridge .Journal of Economics, 1992, 16, p. 386).

as well as to refute them: (5)

A major criticism of the Driffil and Miller analysis is that it models private sector expectations in a very mechanistic way. [...]. We demonstrate that, in contrast to Driffil and Miller, realignments can have favourable effects on the economy in that output and interest rates will be moved towards their equilibrium levels (Oxford Economic Papers, 1995, 2, p. 211).

When they are cited, they are all included in his/her discourse activity. Focus may be on their personality or their work, as Swales's distinction between integral and non-integral forms of citation has highlighted (1990, 148). In both cases the common concern for a topic is an occasion for the triggering of the dialogic situation.

7. Conclusions Citation has been seen (Gilbert 1977) as a tool of persuasion. From our perspective it rather appears more specifically, a rhetorical as well as an epistemological tool for a construction of the past. The construction of the past is achieved by means of a conversation, carried out among „the group of conversing people", governed, in Habermas terms, by Sprachethik. The author's claims are situated in a context where other papers are held as predecessors. There are references to the past and to the shared understanding of that past. (R. Rossini Favretti 1995). Through citations and intertextual practices, the writer's discourse is located in relation to a sequential series of other discourses, whose authority supports and validates his/her own practices. As Bazerman vividly states, „Explicit intertextuality also helps mobilize a range of literature to support and extend the new claim. The more firmly you can tie the claim to the accepted intertextual web, the more persuasive the claim appears" (1988, 325). It is important to note at this point that the explicit reference implies a modification of the role played by the writer in the dialogic process. When citing his interlocutors, he projects his antecedents constructing himself as a reader and interpreter of their discourse. His reading and interpretation of the scientific literature is a condition for the construction of his own text.

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In the temporal continuum that he constitutes in discourse, he moves forward towards his prospective readers and backwards, towards his predecessors. Dialogic situations are created in both directions.

Notes 1. All texts are cited in English. 2. We can refer, for instance, to recent discussions about the rhetoric of inquiry, such as those introduced by McCloskey, the best-known advocate of this position, or by Klamer or Gross. 3. The corpus is relatively small, about 180,000 words. The small size may be justified by its being text-specific and by the validation procedures employed. Further articles were examined to validate the results of the analysis. 4. In the sampling no previous information about the approach was given. 5. ERA text-processing shows that there are about 200 occurrences of first person pronouns versus 3 occurrences of second person pronouns. We can say that the „other" is almost absent, except for occasional imperative forms.

References Bazerman, C. (1988), Shaping Written Knowledge, Madison, Wis.: The University of Wisconsin Press. Bazerman, C./Paradis, J. (1991), Textual Dynamics and the Professions, Madison, Wis.: The University of Wisconsin Press. Benveniste, E. (1966), Problèmes de linguistique générale, Paris: Gallimard. Burke, K. (1969), A Rhetoric of Motives, Berkeley: University of California Press. Coulthard, M. (ed.) (1994), Advances in Written Text Analysis, London: Routledge. Crane, D. (1972), Invisible Colleges: Diffusion of Knowledge in Scientific Communities, Midway reprint, Chicago. Durkheim, E. (1976), The Elementaiy Forms of Religious Life, London: Allen and Unwin. Foucault, M. (1972), The Archeology of Knowledge, New York, Harper Colophon Books. Fries, U./Tottie, G./Schneider, P. (eds.) (1994), Creating and Using English Language Corpora, Amsterdam, Rodopi. Gadamer, H. G. (1975), Truth and Method, New York: Crossroad. Gadamer, H.G. (1982), Reason in the Age of Science, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Geertz, C. (1983), Local Knowledge, New York, Basic Books. Gilbert, G.N. (1977), Referencing as Persuasion. In: Social Studies of Science, 7, 113-122. Gosden, H. (1993), Discourse Functions of Subjects in Research Articles. In: Applied Linguistics, XIV, 1, 56-75. Gross, A G. (1990), The Rhetoric of Science, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Halliday, M.A.K./Martin, JR. (1993a), Writing Science: Literacy and Discursive Power, London and Washington, D C.: Falmer. Halliday, M.A.K. (1993b), Language as Cultural Dynamic. In: Cultural Dynamics, 6, 1, 1-9. Halliday, M.A.K. (1995), The Grammatical Construction of Scientific Knowledge: The Framing of the English Clause, ms. for Translating Languages: Communication, Formal Reconstruction and Theory Change, in press. Henderson, W. et al. (1993), Economics and Language, London: Routledge. Kirsch G./Rohen D.H. (1990), A Sense of Audience in Written Communication, Newsbury Park: Sage. Klamer, A. (1988), Economics as Discourse. In: De Marchi, N. (ed.), The Popperian Legacy in Economics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kuhn, T. S. (1968), The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kuhn, T. S. (1970), The Essential Tension. Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lavoie, D. (ed.) (1990), Economics and Hermeneutics, London: Routledge.

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Lyons, J. (1977), Semantics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McCloskey, D. (1985), The Rhetoric of Economics, Madison, Wis.: The University of Wisconsin Press. McCloskey, D. (1994), Knowledge and Persuasion in Economics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ong, W.G. (1975), The Writer's Audience is Always a Fiction. In: PMLA, 90, 9-21. Popper, K. (1979 (1972)), Objective Knowledge. An Evolutionary Approach, rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ricoeur, P. (1981), Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, New York: Cambridge University Press. Rorty, R. (1979), Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Rossini Favretti, R. (1995), Scientific Discourse: Intertextual and Intercultural Practices, ms. for Translating Languages: Communication, Formal Reconstruction and Theory Change, in press. Samuels, W. (1990), Economics as Discourse, Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishing. Sinclair, J. (1991), Corpus, Concordance, Collocation, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sinclair J. (1992), The Automatic Analysis of Corpora. In J. Svartvik (ed.), Directions in Corpus Linguistics, New York: de Gruyter, 1992. Swales, J. (1990), Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whorf, B.L. (1956), Linguistics as an Exact Science. In J. B. Carroll (ed.), Language, Thought and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf, New York: Wiley.

Acknowledgements I wish to thank F. Tamburini and the C.I.L.T.A. documents.

staff for their valuable help in processing the

Anna

Duszak

Relaxing Argumentation in Academic Texts

1. Language of science and academic communication 2. Strategies of relaxation in academic discourse 2.1 Genre-coherence and weight of imposition 2.2 „Adding flesh to the skeleton": some examples of relaxed academic rhetoric 3. Relaxed argumentation, academic face and politeness systems Note References Sources Acknowledgements

1. Language of science and academic communication Recently discussions of academic communication have been replacing the traditional interest in the language of science (Wissenschaftssprache). This change is not only a matter of terminology, but also a sign of an essential turn in the way of looking at language in the process of knowledge transmission and the creation of academic solidarity. Following a long period of depreciation - if not of an outright denouncement - of the „human presence" in academic texts, the human element entered into the picture. Two basic assumptions about academic writing have been revised: its anti-rhetorical and anti-authoritarian character. The anti-rhetorical character of academic texts was seen as a natural consequence of scientific work. Scientificness implies truth, knowledge and objectivity. Caught between the sacrum of truth and the profanum of the human mediator, the language of science was believed to better fulfill its tasks once made into an impersonal tool for transmitting facts and withholding opinions. The writer was supposed not to influence readers except through the exercise of rational judgement. An appeal to intellect was sanctified and an appeal to emotion was stigmatized. A research text - to paraphrase Nichols' (1988) statement on Russian - was perceived above all as „a gnomic construct of knowledge". The anti-authoritarian position, on the other hand, grew from the belief that an academic text should speak for itself. Historically, it stemmed from the ideology of opposition to authority. Scollon/Scollon (1995) link it to the development of deductive methods in the evolution of modern sciences. If the anti-rhetorical imperative had its focus on text characteristics, the anti-authoritarian one emphasized in-group power relations. The two, however, led to congruent effects on the level of discourse, and contributed to the presumption of a uniform style of academic ideation across linguistic and ethnic domains. Both assumptions have been strongly battered, if not entirely demolished, by the developments in modern textlinguistics, discourse analysis and contrastive rhetoric. Texts began to be seen as social acts of being and interacting with others. Text properties were interpreted in terms of user

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characteristics and related to systems of face values, attitudes to knowledge and varying intellectual traditions. Variation in discourse and user characteristics across disciplines and languages has been documented in a number of studies in academic communication patterns (see, e.g. Galtung 1985; Clyne 1987; Hinds 1987; Myers 1989; Mauranen 1993; Cmejrkovâ 1994, Duszak 1994; Hunston 1994). The concept of an academic community (Swales 1990) was built up around the idea of gradable competence in field and discourse: academic communities are made up by experts and novices. It is experts who produce valued rhetorical patterns and thus set standards for academic ideation. It would seem though that experts not only set standards, but are also freer to violate them. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the discussion of academic discourse in terms of human characteristics and culture-sensitive parameters of analysis. The focus is on rhetorical devices that relax argumentation. Examples come from English and Polish academic texts in linguistics.

2. Strategies of relaxation in academic discourse 2.1 Genre-coherence and weight of imposition By relaxing argumentation I mean import of rhetorical devices that challenge or contravene expectations of a „plain" or „matter-of-fact" style of academic exposition. These may be jokes, anecdotes, asides, proverbs, colloquialisms or any forms of pathos and imagery. Clearly, relaxation is a non-central strategy in academic discourse. It contributes to the key of discourse by affecting the level of interactiveness of the text and the perception of underlying interpersonal meanings (power relations). A thorough analysis would be needed in order to provide a systematic and statistically significant account of the varying strategies for invigorating academic texts. This paper is exploratory only and its primary goal is to present the phenomenon of argument relaxation as a viable parameter for analyzing academic texts and for drawing crosscultural comparisons of academic styles. The discussion concentrates on cost evaluation of relaxed structures vis-à-vis various academic contexts and politeness systems. Strategies of relaxation in academic texts can be seen as intrusions into the flow of rational discourse. On the one hand, they may evoke states of stylistic-rhetorical disharmony within the genre. On the other hand, they may affect the perception of interpersonal meanings in discourse. What matters is the relative weight of imposition (the term adapted from Brown/Levinson 1978) of such structures from the point of view of genre-coherence and the underlying systems of social values. The rhetorics of relaxation is evaluated here for its appropriacy against the expectations that members of a given academic community have with respect to texts and writers. It is arguable that various academic traditions exhibit varying tolerance to argument relaxation in scientific texts. As a result relaxed meanings in discourse can produce varying effects of markedness of academic style. Appropriacy judgements depend a lot on the extent to which such rhetorical devices could initiate a face threatening act.

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2.2 „Adding flesh to the skeleton": some examples of relaxed academic rhetoric To my mind, the least intrusive, hence low-cost relaxation strategies are directed at pepping-up the flow of academic discourse. Typical here are colloqualisms that colour the text yet do not transmit potentially negative overtones in the writer's attitude to his/her readership (e.g. not taking the reader seriously by trivializing the language, or patronizing him/her by turning informal). Other things being equal, the reader has grounds to believe that by implementing a particular rhetorical move the writer wants only to make his/her style more vivid, more picturesque and thus perhaps also easier to process. This is what apparently happens in (1) and (2), where the colloquialisms (in italics - emphasis added) „soften" the style of exposition: (1) One force that affects word order is information structure. In context, every sentence has a contextual (textual) as well as situational fit. The sentence must be accommodated to fit into its contextual envelope; to use another metaphor it must be provided with devices that plug it into the preceding text and make possible a contact with what comes after. (Enkvist 1984, 53) (2) [...] To add another small morsel of flesh to my programmatic skeleton I shall give an example of a processual approach to one detail in the constrastive study of English, Swedish and Finnish, (ibidem, 63)

Similar devices are employed in Polish examples (3-4):1

(3) Jesli uzyskane wyniki rzucic na tto opozycji j?zyka pisanego i mówionego, to teksty piesni ludowych wydadza si? blizsze nominalizmowi utworów pisanych niz mowie potocznej. /Should the above results be thrown against the background of the opposition between spoken and written language, texts of folk songs would seem closer to the nominalism of written works rather than to everyday speech./ (Bartminski 1976,180) (4) Pokusa podj^cia tej próby na materiale mówionym nqci dlatego, poniewaz akt „zachowania si? i dzialania j?zykowego" dokonujacy si? w mowie jest przedmiotem pragmatycznie namacalnym i wyrazistym. /A temptation to undertake this attempt [search for pragmatic motivation of hypotaxis - AD] on the basis of spoken data is hard to resist because an act of „verbal being and doing" that is taking place in speech is an object that is pragmatically distinct and tangible./ (Pisarkowa 1976, 204)

Lexical and phraseological inserts of this kind carry elements of literary imagery and invite discussions in terms of style coherence. It would seem that they are the more striking, the more intellectualized the style of academic exposition tends to be within a given intellectual tradition. A good example of such radical intrusion into the integrity of the academic genre can be found in a Polish text (Pisarkowa 1975), where the author starts with a page-and-a-half description of a plane trip that had inspired her to write the paper. More interesting, however, are relaxation strategies that the writer chooses to use in the course of argumentation proper, viz., while making a claim, defending it, or challenging somebody else's claim. Here rational reasoning is marked by persuasive and/or emotional overtones that are most likely to project on the perception of interpersonal relations in discourse.

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It is in such contexts in particular that relaxation can turn into a face threatening act. Theoretically (5) is a case at point:

(5) It is one of the most remarkable properties of the human mind that it is able to be conscious of experiences that are displaced from the immediate environment in which the possesor of the mind is located. This ability is so obvious, so basic a part of human experience, that it is seldom noticed or remarked upon, but its importance to human thought and language is profound. Without it, people would be condemned to experiencing only their immediate experiences, actions, and feelings. They would be like a frog whose experimential repertoire was limited to noticing and happily devouring passing flights, its consciousness devoid of memories of the days when it was a prince and incapable of imagining the days when it might be united with the princess. The capacity for displaced consciousness enormously expands the range of human experience. (Chafe 1992, 231).

Threatening, as it may seem at first glance, the

frog-parable

is really innocent through its

absurdity. Its use may be judged as surprising, funny or improper, yet it can hardly be taken as an actual threat to the reader's academic image especially as it is not directly targeted at the reader (cf. the generality o f the statement). It is rather a frivolous illustration o f what would happen if the writer's position (and most probably also the reader's) were to be contravened. N o matter what understanding w e may have for this kind o f story in the middle o f an argument, the writer will probably be excused as saying no more than: „Sure you w o n ' t take m e seriously on that. I'm just kidding. W e agree on the issue anyway". The situation is not quite the same in the three Polish examples below. In (6), following an emphatic exclusion o f certain options to solve a problem, the writer uses an exclamation mark in order to highlight the inappropriacy o f a particular solution, and a question mark in order to implicate the reader as the one w h o should take the challenge and figure out the answer for himself/herself:

(6) Podawany przez gramatyki i sJowniki repertuar zaimkow pytajnych nie rozwiqzuje problemu. Okazuje si?, ze funkcj? komunikowania niewiadomej petiuq. niejednokrotnie takie odcinki tekstu, ktore nie mog^ bye traktowane ani jako syntetyczne, ani jako analityczne formy fleksyjne jednego leksemu. Jak zatem owe wykladniki niewiadomej identyfikowac w tekstach - bo nie w slownikach! -j?zyka polskiego? /Grammar books and dictionaries give repertories of pronouns that do not solve the problem. It turns out that the function of communicating the unknown is often performed by such text segments that cannot be treated as either synthetic or analytic inflectional forms of a single lexeme. How then - since not in the dictionaries! identify such exponents of the unknown in Polish texts?/ (Swidzinski 1976, 214)

A still stronger imposition can be seen in (7) and (8). In the first example the writer emphatically marks the inappropriacy o f a given solution to the problem under discussion, saying that the juxtaposition o f the t w o objects would be absurd:

(7) Ze te przedmioty maj^ si? do siebie jak piernik do wiatraka, to tylko zrodlo okreslonej dewiacyjnosci. Ale ta dewiacyjnosc zdania [...] bierze si? st^d, ze... /That these objects compare like apples and oranges is but a source of a particular deviance. But this deviant nature of the sentence [...] follows from ... / (Boguslawski 1983, 21)

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The Polish idiom piernik do wiatraka (literally: compare like gingerbread and -windmill) is rare and rather oldfashioned. It is normally used only in informal situations and by people who assume the right to be judgemental. Second, the expression connotes an oldfashioned collocation old gingerbread, which was once used as a derogatory term for an old man. As a result, it would seem, the Polish idiom is pragmatically more marked than its English translation above as well as more striking in an academic context. In (8) the same author resorts to a colloquial saying kawa na lawie (literally: coffee on the bench, roughly: to call a spade a spade) while dismissing an expectation that a position should be clarified any further: (8) Istnieje cos, co nie jest po prostu ci^giem zdan, ale nie jest tez przyizadzona do korica „kawq na iawie ", nie jest rozwi^zaniem. /There exists something that is not simply a sequence of sentences, that is not what you can describe by „calling a spade a spade ", that is not a solution./ (ibidem., 29)

This expression too is used only in colloquial settings. It also carries an overtone of impatience or even reproach: „Do I really have to explain all that? Can't you see what I mean?" Its use in an academic context brings the risk of a preaching tone on the writer.

3. Relaxed argumentation, academic face and politeness systems The use of relaxed rhetoric in argument development may have profound consequences for the perception of academic face, that is the public image a scholar chooses to have and protect within his/her academic community. An evaluation of the anticipated benefits or losses of style relaxation is necessary in order to predict its interactive appropriacy and its consequences for the author's self-face and the face of others. Important here is the interaction between academic and „regular" politeness systems. Clearly, an academic culture always draws on the general culture of a given ethnic and linguistic community. This invites comparisons of academic styles in terms of high- and low-context cultures in the ethnometodological and sociological traditions. On this view English would probably be described as a low-context academic culture due to more egalitarian relations between members of the academic community, and more affinities in style between the general and the academic registers. In contrast, Polish (like German or Czech) would qualify as a high-context academic culture. Here degrees of membership in the community are more profoundly marked and more carefully celebrated. Discoursal patterns are strongly influenced by the cultural emphases on scientificness and intellectualization of style in addressing scholarly matters. This leads to deeper divisions between the language for academic purposes and for „common" needs, as well as sets higher barriers for access to code (see e.g. Gajda 1990; Biniewicz/Starzec 1995, for some discussion of scientific Polish).

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Following up on Brown and Levinson's (1978) classification of politeness systems, we could say that, generally, academic cultures fall under deference politeness system (-Power, +Distance). Relations among community members can normally be described in terms of mutual yet distant independence. This picture becomes, however, more complex once we admit of variation within academic communities in matters relating to face and politeness phenomena. It would seem that English pulls towards solidarity politeness while downgrading the distance parameter among community members, on the one hand, and functional styles, on the other. Polish, in turn, shows orientation towards a hierarchical politeness system with more asymmetrical role relations and more divergent style requirements. It is in such cultures that involvement strategies (of which relaxation is an example) are normally used „downwards" and thus can imply a patronizing tone on the part of the writer. In face-threatening contexts in particular, relaxed rhetoric can be interpreted as a sign of the writer's self-indulgance in managing the level of interactiveness of the text and controlling the interpersonal meanings in discourse. While resorting to it, the author not only manifests his/her expert-status within a given academic community. S/he also takes the liberty to go beyond the limits of „plain" academic style and into the realm of a more imaginative mode of science narration. In addition, strategies of relaxation cannot be discussed in dissociation from specific field and time characteristics of academic texts under consideration. Firstly, chances that we should come across relaxed argumentation patters are higher in the humanities than in the sciences. On the whole, it would seem, the imperative of anti-rhetorical and anti-authoritarian style of academic writing has its sources in the rigorous conditionings of the sciences. It is less pervading, and perhaps less obvious as well, in research areas whose language entails closer affinities with more general forms of exposition and more literary patterns of expression. Secondly, genres change historically (e.g. Kress 1987, 42), which means that what we interpret as a relaxed style of argumentation is ameable to broader evaluations of style within a given culture and relative to a given period of time. Thus, a rhetorical character of an academic text may not be a problem at all. Kupiszewski (1989) discusses emotionality in Polish scientific texts in the humanities about a hundred years ago. He provides examples of highly emotional rhetorical devices - including colloquialisms and derogatory epithets - whose purpose was to discredit or ridicule academic adversaries. In this tactic he sees elements of public oratories as well as signs of early affinities between the style of scholarly exposition and that of journalistic polemic. Finally, relaxation devices can be interpreted in terms of an oral mode in written academic discourse (see, esp. 6, 7, 8 above). This opens up the question about genre homogeneity. Perhaps our assumptions about a high level of intellectualization of Polish academic discourse should be revised so as to accommodate a variety of influences into how impact can be made in addressing an academic community. To conclude: Pathos, imagery, colloquialisms or anecdotes are rhetorical devices that relax argumentation in academic texts. The assessment of such strategies requires access to the local context of the text (task at hand) and the global conditionings of a given intellectual style (face systems in particular). Relaxed argumentation patterns produce effects of markedness that are

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inversely proportional to the level of intellectualization of a given academic style and the extent of conservatism within a given academic community. Needles to say, the use of academic imagery is also a matter of individual style and creativity of the writer.

Note 1. All translations of Polish examples are mine.

References Biniewicz, J./Starzec, A. (1995), Styl naukowy. (Scientific Style). In: Gajda, S. (ed.), Przewodnik po stylistyce polskiej. (Polish Stylistics. A Guide-book), Opole. Brown, P./Levinson, S. (1978), Politeness. Some Universals in Language Usage, Cambridge. Clyne, M. (1987), Cultural Differences in the Organization of Academic Texts. In: Journal of Pragmatics 11, 211247. tmejrkovä, S. (1994), Non-native (Academic) Writing. In: Cmejrkovä, S./Daneä, F./Havlovä, E. (eds.), Writing vs Speaking. Language, Text, Discourse, Communication, Tübingen, 303-310. Duszak, A. (1994), Academic Discourse and Intellectual Styles. In: Journal of Pragmatics 21, 291-313. Gajda, S. (1990), Wspölczesna polszczyzna naukowa. J^zyk czy zargon? (Modern Scientific Polish. Language or Jargon?), Opole. Galtung, J. (1985), Struktur, Kultur und intellektueller Stil. In: Wierlacher, A. (ed.), Das Fremde und das Eigene, München, 151-193. Hinds, J. (1987), Reader versus Writer Responsibility: A New Typology. In: Connor, U./Kaplan. R. (eds.), Writing across Languages: Analysis of L2 Text, Reading, Mass., 141-152. Hunston, S. (1994), Evaluation and Organization in a Sample of Written Academic Discourse. In: Coulthard, M. (ed.), Advances in Written Text Analysis, London, 191-218. Kress, G. (1987), Genre in a Social Theory of Language: a Reply to John Dixon. In: Reid, I. (ed.), The Place of Gerne in Learning: Current Debates, Victoria, 35-45. Kupiszewski, P. (1989). Emocjonalnoic w dawnych tekstach naukowych (Emotionality in Old Scientific Texts). In: Poradnik J^zykowy 7, 462-468. Mauranen, A. (1993), Cultural Differences in Academic Rhetoric, Frankfurt am Main. Myers, G. (1989), The Pragmatics of Politeness in Scientific Articles. In: Applied Linguistics 1, 1-35. Nichols, J. (1988), Nominalization and Assertion in Scientific Russian Prose. In: Haiman, J./Thompson, S. (eds ), Clause Combining in Grammar and Discourse, Amsterdam, 399-428. Scollon, R./Scollon, S. (1995), Intercultural Communication. A Discourse Approach, Oxford. Swales, J. (1990), Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings, Cambridge.

Sources Bartminski, J. (1976), Oralnosc tekstu piesni ludowej w swietle statystyki leksykalnej (Orality of Folk Song in the Light of Lexical Statistics). In: Mayenowa, M.R. (ed.), 175-201. Boguslawski, A. (1983), Slowo o zdaniu i o tekscie (A Word about the Sentence and the Text). In: Dobrzynska, T./Janus, E. (eds.), Tekst i zdanie (Text and Sentence), Wroclaw, 7-31.

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Chafe, W. (1992), Immediacy and Displacement in Consciousness and Language. In: Stein, D. (ed.), Cooperating with Written Texts: The Pragmatics and Comprehension of Written Texts, Berlin, 231-255. Enkvist, N.E. (1984), Contrastive Linguistics and Text Linguistics. In: Fisiak, J. (ed.), Contrastive Linguistics. Prospects and Problems, Berlin, 54-67. Mayenowa, M.R. (ed.), (1975), Semantyka tekstu i jfzyka (Semantics of Text and Language), Wroclaw. Pisarkowa, K. (1975), Pragmatyczny skladnik kompetencji j^zykowej (A Pragmatic Compound of the Linguistic Competence). In: Polonica 1, 7-18. Pisarkowa, K. (1976), Pragmatyczna motywacja hipotaksy (Pragmatic Motivation of Hypotaxis). In: Mayenowa, M.R. (ed.), 203-212. Swidzinski, M. (1976), O zlozonych wykladnikach niewiadomej pytania (On Complex Exponents of the Unknown in Questions). In: Mayenowa, M.R. (ed.), 213-223.

Acknowledgements This work is part of a project supported by Research Support Scheme, grant 355/1995.

Marina Bondi Paganelli Dialogues within Discourse Communities in Economics Textbooks Argumentative Roles and their Indicators in English

1. Introduction 2. Dialogues in and around textbooks: sequences of argumentative roles 3. Textbooks in context: discourse communities and writer/reader-roles 4. Overlapping dialogues 5. Conclusions Notes References

1. Introduction This paper is based on the analysis of a small corpus of economics textbook chapters and focuses on a dialogic view of textbook writing. The key-word in the title is perhaps - with a rhetorical strategy which, I am well aware, is not new - a key-morpheme: the morpheme of plurality. My main point is simply that any description of a genre like the textbook can only be accurate when it recognises the complex interactional patterns involved in the composition of a textbook, which is the result of a variety of dialogues in which the textbook writer engages. The dialogic features of a formally monologic written text have recently become the object of great interest in language and discourse studies. The claim that all language use is dialogic has opened interesting new perspectives on the processes of reading and writing, focusing on the ways in which writers engage in „inner dialogues" in the process of planning, writing, and editing text. It has also offered insights into the particular grammatical systems and structures normally associated with the dialogic nature of language as well as on the many ways in which monologues still retain clear indications of an assumed response of a reader/listener.1 There is also a specific interest in dialogue and conversation within the multidisciplinary area of studies that investigates scientific discourse as such and economics discourse in particular. Scientists and philosophers of science have often held the idea that science itself may be the result of argument and persuasion, meant to resolve controversies between rival schools or paradigms. The issue is particularly relevant to social sciences. This is not only because their subject matter is cultural and institutional (their „facts" do not objectively exist apart from the conduct of human affairs) but also because they tend to see their role as that of mediating between the two traditional „cultures": the literary and the scientific.2 Samuelson himself has often referred to the peculiar position of economics within the framework of the „two cultures".3 Economists have increasingly recognised the importance of paying attention to their own discourse, its plurality of

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languages - both natural and formal - and of approaches: the demonstrative logic of mathematical economics; the factual reasoning of economic history; the use of statistics or the different role played by experimental research in different areas of economics, etc. The issue of dialogism becomes even more relevant when dealing with textbooks and their peculiar nature. Just as social sciences may be characterized by argumentative dialogue within the scientific community and with border sciences, textbooks may be seen as characterized by a further kind of dialogue: educational dialogue. This may often be responsible for the way textbooks conceal the argumentative nature of science, by presenting a well-established set of facts and theories.4 Many of the recent studies of economics textbooks show this awareness: both Klamer (1990) and Swales (1993), for example, focus on how economics textbooks tend to hide the dialogic nature of economic science, what McCloskey (1985) has called economics as conversation. It is my belief, however, that critical language analysis of the text could help readers see the traces of a variety of argumentative interactions established by the text. The reflections presented in this paper are based on the analysis of a corpus of textbooks that has been designed in order to analyse a variety of features. The corpus collects selected chapters of 10 standard introductory textbooks: the introductory chapter, a chapter on micro- and a chapter on macro-economics. 5 In the first part of this paper, I will briefly deal with sequences of typically dialogic argumentative roles (see Stati 1990) found in the corpus, focusing on a pattern involving the discourse marker of course. This is obviously not analysed in detail, but just presented as a brief example of the kind of investigation that might support the general claim that language is fundamentally dialogic. I will then focus on the contextual configuration of textbooks and on the tenor of the interaction in particular, pointing out the need to consider a plurality of discourse communities and discourse practices in defining the genre.

2. Dialogues in and around textbooks: sequences of argumentative roles When dealing with dialogic aspects of textbooks, we may think of a variety of perspectives. To simplify, we may consider three broad areas, one that is more properly contextual and two that may be regarded as textual: a) the dialogic interactions around the text; b) the dialogic interactions represented in the text; c) the dialogic interactions realised in the text, when writers engage in dialogue with their readers, i.e. the on-going dialogue. Let us deal with the dialogic interactions around the text first. The strategies and structures adopted by the textbook will be influenced by the current debates within the scientific community; they might also be influenced by some of the current pedagogical debates both within and without the scientific community. These will not be relevant as such to the study of textbooks as a genre, but only inasmuch as they find some form of representation in the text. This may happen both at the level of the primary discourse plan (writer-reader dialogue) and at the

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level of a secondary discourse plan (dialogue between fictional or non-fictional individuals of the world represented by the text). The distinction between the dialogue that takes place in the world represented by the text and the dialogue built in the text itself, on the primary discourse plan, is not always clear-cut. Let us consider example (1). (1)

Say the federal government wants to drill for oil off the California coast. A storm of complaints is heard. A defender of the program states: „What's all the ruckus about? There's valuable oil out there, and there is plenty of sea-water to go around. This is very low-cost oil for the nation". In fact, the opportunity cost might be very high. If drilling leads to oil spills that spoil the beaches, recreational activities might suffer. The opportunity cost might not be easily measured, but the recreational value of the ocean is every bit as real as the value of oil under the waters. (Samuelson, Ch. 8)

The first paragraph shows how an imaginary debate can be reported in the text in a variety of forms: narrative report of speech acts first, followed by direct speech. The second paragraph, however, also shows a dialogic sequence: in fact signals that the writer is arguing with a „character". The reader is only a silent participant at this stage of the debate, although s/he will be called to cooperate in the argumentation that follows. We thus come to the dialogic interaction(s) built on the primary discourse plan. Here we study the ways in which textbook writers engage in dialogues with their readers. This dialogue is often direct: the writer asks questions or makes suggestions and addresses the reader directly. At other times the writer's (and the reader's) voice may be „distanced" by reporting frameworks or by projecting reader and writer on to „third persons": you might wonder, you should be able to realize, anyone who understands macroeconomic analysis can realize. The mise-en-scene of the dialogue with the reader often takes up the form of specific, very explicit, dialogic sequences and - which is my main interest here - of less explicit, argumentative micro-sequences, where typically dialogic roles like concession and objection play a major role. The textbook writer often assigns the reader a variety of argumentative roles in the construction of his own argument, on the basis of an expected argumentative co-operation. The reader may be asked to draw inferences, to make objections, at times even to assume a given ideological position, only to be brought to agreement with the writer by successive steps in the argumentative sequence. A pattern that I have frequently found in my corpus might be identified, at first approximation, as [CLAIM]A(COUNTER-CLAIM/INFERENCE)ACONCESSIONAOBJECTIONA[CLAIM]

The sequence presents clear indications of a dialogue with an intended reader whose inference or counter-claim is temporarily agreed with. The counter-claim or the inference may not be explicit at all, but they are clearly presupposed by the concession. The claim may come as an initiation, but it may also be simply presupposed by the counter-claim and therefore stated at the end.

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The argumentative roles can be signalled by a variety of indicators. Here I focus on a series of sequences where the concession is signalled by of course, mostly followed by but.6 Let us begin with example (2). (2)

The scientific approach. How, you might wonder, could Smith or Keynes or today's economists hope to answer the deep and difficult questions that economics addresses? How could anyone hope to know in a precise and scientific way why Japan has grown rapidly while the Soviet Union has stagnated? Can economists really explain why some people are fabulously rich while others can hardly afford one square meal a day? Of course, economists have no monopoly on the truth about the important issues of the day. Indeed, many phenomena are poorly understood and highly controversial. But economists and other scientists have developed techniques - sometimes called the scientific approach - that give them a head start in understanding the complex forces that affect economic growth, prices and wages, income distribution, and foreign trade. (Samuelson 1992: Ch. 1)

In this extract, the claim is only anticipated by the paragraph heading and it is implicit in the series of questions which are specifically attributed to the reader as a counter-claim. Of course signals a concession to the reader's disbelief, corroborated by the sentence introduced by indeed. The objection introduced by but leads to a full statement of the claim. Let us consider a further example: (3)

All your life - from cradle to grave - you will run up against the brutal truths of economics. As a voter, you will make decisions on issues - on the government budget, regulating industries, taxes, and foreign trade that cannot be understood until you have mastered the rudiments of the subject. Choosing your life's occupation is the most important economic decision you will make. Your future depends not only on your own abilities but also upon how economic forces beyond your control affect your wages. Also, economics may help you invest the nest egg you have saved from your earnings. Of course, studying economics cannot make you a genius. But without economics the dice of life are simply loaded against you. (Samuelson 1992: Ch. 1)

The first few sentences of the extract build up a major claim about the importance of economics in life. Of course introduces recognition of a counterclaim, thus signalling both writer's opinion and reader's agreement7, whereas but allows the writer to show referential contrast as well as to return to the point he had supported.8 Within the dialogic sequences in my corpus concessive of course clearly signals a movement towards the implied reader (or addressee in general), i.e. a recognition of the reader as partner in argument, by pointing at some element of expected knowledge or belief. The reference to the text receiver, to what can be expected of the other participant, is thus embedded in the line of the writer's argument and becomes essential to its development. This, of course, may also be a very important way by which a common background is actually constructed in discourse, particularly in a didactic genre like the textbook.9

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3. Textbooks in context: discourse communities and writer/reader-roles Textbooks can be seen as a particularly interesting communicative genre where two orders of discourse intersect: the discourse of education and the discourse of a specific discipline. This implies that we cannot simply describe the contextual configuration10 of a textbook in terms of the interaction between an expert-writer and a student-reader, but we must set it against the background of both the discourse of education and the discourse of science. Textbook writers belong to both discourse areas and see themselves as both scientists and „popularizers", researchers and teachers. As scientists, they will be taking dialogic position as against different schools of thought, different methodological practices and different policy lines. Within the specific discourse area of teaching economics, they will be interacting as educators with other educators and with the students (the „evaluator reader" and „consumer reader", as Swales (1994) puts it). They therefore address a plurality of intended readers and dialogue with their readers in many ways, by foregrounding specific features of their roles: the colleague may be addressed both as a fellow researcher and as a fellow teacher; the student may be involved in both ideological argument and didactic moves, as summarised in the table below. TABLE 1 - WRITER/READER ROLES

writer as arguer researcher teacher textbook writer teacher

reader as partner in argument researcher student textbook evaluator fellow teacher

Argument apparently addressed to student-readers may be influenced by the scientific community at large. If an example like (3) above clearly shows a representation of the writer as teacher and the reader as student, other examples provide different representations. Extract (2), for example, clearly shows that the dialogue is taking place within the scientific community: the writer as researcher is talking to the reader as researcher about the methodological debate within economics. Similarly, in (4) below, the debate subsumed by the argumentative sequence is the theoretical debate about anti-inflationary policies, which involves both the fellow researcher and the general reader as partner in argument. (4)

Interferences with the „Law" of Supply and Demand. Recall fiom Chapter 4 that one of the 12 Ideas for Beyond the Final Exam states that interfering with free markets by preventing price increases can sometimes serve the public very badly. In extreme cases it can even produce havoc - undermining production and causing extreme shortages of vitally needed products. The reason is that prohibiting price increases in situations of trite scarcity prevents the market mechanism from allocating resources to help cut down the shortage efficiently. The invisible hand is not permitted to do its work. Of course there are cases in which it is appropriate to resist price increases - where unrestrained monopoly would otherwise succeed in gouging the public; where taxes are imposed on products capriciously and inappropriately; and where rising prices fall so heavily on the poor that rationing becomes the more

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acceptable option. But it is important to recognize that artificial restrictions on prices can produce serious and even tragic consequences - consequences that should be taken into account before a decision is made to tamper with the market mechanism. (Baumol, Ch. 13) Example (5) on the other hand may show that although the procedures referred to may regard primarily the student-reader, the objections to the procedure suggested can only be expected o f a colleague. The teacher-student interaction cannot be separated from the interaction between textbook writer and textbook evaluator. (5)

This is the essence of the model of income and output determination that we present in the next few chapters. Of course, as soon as possible we shall want to relax the assumption that prices and wages are fixed. Not only do we want to study the important problem of inflation, but we also want to examine how quickly market forces, acting, through changes in prices and wages, can eliminate the problems of unemployment and spare capacity. But first we must learn to walk. We postpone the analysis of price and wage adjustment until Chapter 25. (Begg, Ch. 20)

Similarly, and even more clearly, the concession in (6) is more probably based on a dialogue between the writer as teacher and the colleague as fellow teacher or textbook evaluator, than on a dialogue with the student. (6)

The assumption that is made on the speed of movements towards equilibrium is one of the fundamental points of disagreement on the causes and cures for unemployment. Free market economists believe that if there is unemployment (that is, if more labour is supplied by individuals than is wanted by firms), then the price paid for labour (that is, the wage) will fall rapidly towards a new equilibrium where demand and supply are equal. Unemployment is then quickly reduced. Keynesian economists believe that such rapid wage movements do not occur (we discuss why they believe this in part III) and so unemployment persists. This single paragraph is, of course, inadequate to describe the persistent and passionate debate between these two schools of thought (and there are several variants of each in practice). However, it alerts us to the consequences of the speed of price changes and its importance in macroeconomic contexts. (Craven, Ch. 1)

4. Overlapping dialogues A further example may be used to illustrate many o f the points I have been making up to n o w about the plurality o f dialogues involved in a textbook. (7)

Correct multiplier analysis. Anyone who understands macroeconomic analysis can realize that there is nothing that spending money in Indochina or the Mideast can succeed in accomplishing which cannot be accomplished as well or better by spending on useful projects at home. Does building missiles and warheads create jobs and secondary chains of multiplied respending? Then so too will building new factories, better roads and schools, cleaning up our rivers, and providing minimum income supplements for our aged and handicapped. Aside from the primary and secondary money spending, we also get the lasting benefits of clean rivers, productive schools and plants, and higher living standards. In terms of economic mechanics and social priorities, you should be able to realize which of the following should win: (1) a manned bomber squadron that never even leaves its base, or (2) a hospital for the alleviation of suffering and prolongation of life. To test your understanding of all this, draw two diagrams. In the first, „let peace break out" and shift down G and C+I+G. For the moment [...]

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Conclusion: The modern mixed economy can afford peace in the post-keynesian age. The two miracle nations in the years since 1950 have been Japan and Germany - defeated nations forbidden by treaty to waste their sustenance on military expenditures! This demonstrates that every mixed economy has the macroeconomic knowledge to create at home without war whatever purchasing power it needs for full employment. And electorates do put pressure on governments - whether Republican or Democratic, Conservative or Labour - to use these known fiscal and monetary tools. (Samuelson 1976: Ch. 41) The first few sentences present a typically dialogic argumentative sequence. We start with the introductory statement of a thesis, the writer's claim is introduced very strongly as shared by anyone who understands

macroeconomic

analysis.

The statement is in itself contrastive and

introduces an argumentative issue and context: there is nothing

that spending

money

in

Indochina or the Mideast can succeed in accomplishing -which cannot be accomplished as well or better by spending

on useful projects

at home. The question that follows (Does

building

missiles and warheads create jobs and secondary chains of multiplied re-spending?) echoes an assumed claim on the part of the reader (already introduced as a counter-claim). The two following statements (Then so too will...) develop the writer's claim and signal both concession of what has been echoed and objection to the implication that this should be a point for the opponent's case. This opening sequence didactically acts as an initiation, roughly identifiable as the motivation and presentation phase of a teaching unit. What follows is a fairly obvious sequence of didactic dialogue: the writer as teacher is constructing a response where the reader is directly asked to identify a fairly obvious choice and to carry out a task that leads him/her to a graphical

representation of the concept (To test your understanding of all this, draw two diagrams...). The third paragraph restates the conclusion and may be taken to act as a follow-up.1' The example may also help us understand how textbooks may actually address a plurality of audiences and involve their voices in the text. The interplay of argument and counter-argument is shown to depend on the presence of a number of only partially overlapping discourse communities in the audience: the student readers, the opponents in the national debate and the opponents in the international debate. The extract, taken from the 1976 edition of the textbook, is part of a wider section, which deals with the trade-off between full employment and price stability, an issue that was then central to both the national and the international debate on both theory and policy. After focusing on the problem in terms of agreeing on an incomes policy, Samuelson moves on to „briefly disposing of Marxist argument". The traditionally Marxist argument he asks the reader to assume helps in fact to introduce a „correct multiplier analysis" and to go back to a provisional conclusion, where creating at home „whatever purchasing power is needed for full employment" is linked to the „known fiscal and monetary tools" that „all electorates" want. The line of argument thus forces the reader to accept that Marxist argument is a „defeated" argument and at the same time - on what was not totally safe ground within the community of fellow economists - to accept Samuelson's own position: his accelerator-multiplier model and his emphasis on an incomes policy, in contrast both with the British neo-keynesian emphasis on fiscal policies and with Friedman's monetarism. The choice of arguments thus seems to fit a variety of dialogues:

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the widest social debate in which any non-expert reader might have been involved, the so called „debate between the two Cambridges" and in the internal debate with the economic advisors of President Nixon. The specific theoretical background is obviously too complex to be tackled here. The example, however, was simply meant to make a case for a multiple reading of the communicative situation of a textbook and for the importance of case studies that should focus on the specific problems of reading scientific texts in their socio-cultural dimension, in their diachronic dimension, with reference to the scientific community and to the other communities involved.

5.

Conclusions

The study of textbooks as a genre should thus take into consideration their complex contextual configuration and the important role played by a mise-en-scene

of the dialogue between

participants. Dialogue with the reader - who is both the student-reader and the colleague clearly affects the textual structure of textbooks and the sequences of argumentative roles, in particular. The reader becomes co-arguer, partner both in a scientific „conversation" and in a teaching dialogue - drawing out implications, expressing disagreement, but always helping the writer to establish his point and thus presumably finally agreeing with the writer. The reader that is thus assumed or embedded in the text is of course also constructed by the text. The specific strategies and structures through which the reader is constructed could be related to a specific view of science and of learning. A writer's foregrounded use of questionanswer sequences, for example, could be related to a view of science as gradually proceeding towards the truth by asking the right questions and getting the right answers. It could also be related to a view of the role played by questions and answers in teacher-student dialogue. Foregrounding either teacher's questions or student's questions obviously implies a different view of the role played by the teacher: dispenser of truth or activator of potential knowledge. All these issues can be explored and made more concrete through data-based language analysis of specific strategies and structures.

Notes 1. Any attempt to present the variety of approaches to the issue would lie beyond the scope of this paper. We might just mention that an interest in the dialogic features of monologue is central both to British discourse analysis (see for example Hoey (1994: 29)) and to American interactional perspectives on grammar (see for example Ford (94, 531-4)). See also Ochs, E./Schegloff, EVThompson, S. (eds.) (1996). 2. See for example Lepenies (1990), about sociology. 3. „Economics is part of both these cultures, a subject that can combine the attractive features of both the humanities and the sciences", quoting from Chapter 1 of the 10th edition of his textbook, or „a subject that combines the rigors of science with the poetry of the humanities" in the 12th edition, only to become „the scientific approach" in the 14th.

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4. Myers (1992) argues that textbooks typically add 'factive'certitude to the phenomena being described and draws attention to an interesting paradox of textbooks: the very same features that make them easier for students to read „may make it harder for them to deal with other text types they encounter later in a scientific career (...) because they get no sense of how facts are established" (Myers 1992:13). The same paradox is thus expressed by Stubbs and Geibig (1993: 81): „Textbooks are founded on a paradox. On the one hand, written language allows (as Popper argues) statements to be explicitly formulated and more easily studied, and therefore encourages a critical view of knowledge. On the other hand, their characteristically authoritative stance (a discussion of ideas, but not of their source; and of facts, but not of the authors'attitudes to those facts) encourages an uncritical view of knowledge". For an analysis of the language features of economics textbooks, see also Hewings (1990) and Mason (1990). 5. Here is the full list of textbooks. Baumol, W.J. and A.S. Blinder, Economics. Principles and Policy, 4th Edition, Orlando, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988; Begg, D., S.Fischer and R. Dornbusch, Economics. British Edition, Maidenhead, McGraw-Hill, 1983; Craven, J., Introduction to Economics, 2nd Edition, Blackwell, Oxford, 1990; Dolan, E.G. and D.E. Lindsey, Economics, 5th Edition, NY, Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1988; Fischer, S. and R. Dornbusch, Economics, NY, McGraw-Hill, 1983; Hardwick, P., B. Kahn & J. Langmead, An Introduction to Modem Economics, 3rd Edition, London, Longman, 1990; Lipsey, R., An Introduction to Positive Economics, 7th Edition, London, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1989; Samuelson, P A. and W.H. Nordhaus, Economics, 14th Edition, NY, McGraw-Hill, 1992; Stanlake, G.F., Introductory Economics, 5th Edition, London Longman, 1989; Wonnacot, P. and R. Wonnacot, Economics, 2nd Edition, NY, McGraw-Hill, 1982. References to examples taken from the corpus are given in the text with last name of the first author and chapter. Various editions of Samuelson's textbook have also been considered for a brief historical perspective. 6. The concessive pattern exemplified above represents the most important sequence of argumentative roles in my corpus, as well as the most important pattern in which of course is involved. The vast majority of the occurrences of of course (55 out of 64, i.e. 85.94%) are associated to some form of counter-claim: 30 of which (60% of the subset, 45.31% of the whole corpus) are actually found in this pattern, whereas 13 (23 .64% of the subset, 20.31% of the whole corpus) can be found in a typical thesis-antithesis-synthesis dialectical pattern and 12 (21.82% of the subset, 18.75% of the whole corpus) in corrections involving a change in perspective or metalanguage. 7. Merlini (1987) lists of course among „inferability indicators", elements by which „the locutor shapes the receiver's role", and which „make the focus of the discourse move way from the locutor"(21). These clearly perform a different discourse function from „epistemic modifiers" like certainly, which are elements of the locutor's line as they „contribute to modulate his personal approach to the argument"(21). It is interesting to notice, however, that inferability indicators like of course can play a very important role within microsequences which build the major blocks of the writer's line in a genre like the textbook. 8. But here shows features of its more conversational uses. Schiffrin (1987) for example, notes that but is used, not only to show referential contrast - often between „functionally differentiated portions of answers, portions which fulfil different expectations of a prior question" (176) - but also to mark competing claims for the floor and to allow the speaker to return to the points they were supporting (177). 9. This is often the case with of course, for example when it accompanies: a) a counter-claim involving a change in perspective or metalanguage, b) the specification of a further issue, c) a causal relation where either an inference is drawn or a reason is produced. 10. The notion of contextual configuration has been widely used in genre studies within the framework of functional-systemic linguistics. An introduction to the issue and to a definition of the three basic variables of a contextual configuration can be found in Halliday and Hasan (1989). 11. The initiation-response-follow up sequence has been variously adopted by Sinclair in describing classroom interaction. See for example Sinclair (1982).

References Coulthard, M. (ed.) (1994), Advances in Written Text Analysis, London. Dudley-Evans, A./Henderson, W. (eds.) (1990), The Language of Economics, London. Ford, C. (1994), Dialogic Aspects of Talk and Writing: Because on the Interactive-edited Continuum. In: Text, 14, 531-554.

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Haliiday, M.A.K./Hasan, R. (1989), Language, Context and Text, Oxford. Henderson, W./Dudley-Evans, A./Backhouse, R. (eds.) (1993), Economics and Language, London. Hewings, A. (1990), Aspects of the Language of Economics Textbooks. In: Dudley-Evans, A./Henderson, W. (eds ), The Language of Economics, London, 29-42. Hoey, M. (1994), Signalling in Discourse: A Functional Analysis of a Common Discourse Pattern in Written and Spoken English. In: Coulthard, M. (ed.), Advances in Written Text Analysis, London, 26-45. Hoey, M. (ed.) (1993), Data, Description, Discourse, London. Klamer, A. (1990), The Textbook Presentation of Economic Discourse. In: Samuels, W. (ed.), Economics as Discourse, London, 129-154. Klamer, A./McCloskey, D./Solow, R. (eds.) (1988), The Consequences of Economic Rhetoric, Cambridge. Lepenies, W. (1990), Les Trois Cultures. Entre science e littérature, l'avènement de la sociologie, Paris. Mason, M. (1990), Dancing on Air: Analysis of a Passage from an Economics Textbook. In: Dudley-Evans, A. and Henderson, W. (eds.), The Language of Economics, London, 16-28. McCloskey, D. (1985), The Rhetoric of Economics, Madison, Wisconsin. McCloskey, D. (1994), Knowledge and Persuasion in Economics, Cambridge. Merlini, L. (1987), „Obviously" and „Certainly": Two Different Functions in Argumentative Discourse. In: Folia Linguistica 21, 3-24. Myers, G. (1992), Textbooks and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge. In: English for Specific Purposes, 11: 317. Ochs, E./Schegloff, E./Thompson, S. (eds.) (1996), Interaction and Grammar, Cambridge. Parret, H. (ed.) (1994), Pretending to Communicate, Berlin. Samuels, W. (ed.) (1990), Economics as Discourse, Boston. Sinclair, J.(1982), The Structure of Teacher Talk, Birmingham. Stati, S. (1990), Le Transphrastique, Paris. Stubbs, M./Gerbig, A. (1993), Human and Inhuman Geography: On the Computer Assisted Analysis of Long Texts. In: M. Hoey (ed.), Data, Description, Discourse, London, 64-85. Swales, J. (1993), The Paradox of Value: Six Treatments in Search of the Reader. In: Henderson et al. (eds ), Economics and Language, London, 223-239. Swales, J. (1994), The Role of the Textbook in EAP Writing Research. In: English for Specific Purposes, 28, 3-18.

Sektion / Section II

Semiotische Aspekte des Dialogs (Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit, nonverbale Kommunikation) Semiotic Aspects of Dialogue (Orality and Literacy, Nonverbal Communication)

Deborah DuBartell Methodological Issues in Computer-mediated Discourse

1. Preliminary remarks 2. The configuration method 3. CMC as dialogue discourse 4. Some features in common with other forms of language 5. What type of evaluation procedure? Notes References

1. Preliminary remarks This paper assumes that technology is a factor in language change and argues that a method for the linguistic analysis of computer-mediated communication (CMC) as e-mail message, or for any form of language for that matter, must be applied to particular problems or problem areas. In the case of technologically transmitted language, one such problem is the medium's architecture, which determines the particular lexico-grammatical properties of language conveyed through it. The analysis of CMC requires first the analysis of the computer medium in terms of its constraints, those linguistic features, or characteristics, of the discourse imposed by the machine architecture. However, in order to avoid over-simplified and/or premature conclusions about CMC discourse structures by focusing exclusively on an apparently unique factor, such as the machine itself, the method must further include analysis of those linguistic features which CMC shares with the linguistic forms of other written and spoken substances and media. Since there appears to be a set of linguistic attributes rather than one single attribute which permits a categorical distinction of CMC, the method must ultimately address that particular configuration of linguistic features which is identifiable as computer-mediated communication. The database for the discussion of the Configuration Method proposed here is a corpus of 403 e-mail messages from a news network. Without a method, nothing definitive can be said about the language data. The development of a method proceeds from the questions one asks about the language data. The CMC discourse of e-mail messages seems so spoken-like. How can that be? In what ways are e-mail messages and speech similar? Are these surface similarities or do the same linguistic features appear in these two substances (written and spoken) and media (computer and face-to-face interaction)? Furthermore, e-mail messages can look different from other forms of written communication. What are these differences? What causes them? From these questions, we see that a method must be devised which will apply not only to the language of e-mail messages but to the language of

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face-to-face interaction and to the language of other written media such as print, which will apply to the standard written dialect and non-standard written varieties, to both edited and spontaneous modes of language. In short, the method must address a comparative analysis of language features in terms of substance, medium, modality and variety. The method is limited to these four factors.

2.

The configuration method

I have been much influenced by Vachek's many works on spoken and written language relations (cf. 1973, 1989) and by other earlier Prague School theoreticians who laid the foundation for textological studies, including discourse typology. In particular, Vachek's concept of the „norm" of language as applying equivalently to both spoken language, with its spoken norm, and written language, with its written norm, led me to develop the four parameters mentioned above for the study of spoken and written language forms and eventually to the configuration method. In DuBartell (cf. 1994), I examine four parameters for the study of both spoken and written language. First, the linguistic parameter is concerned with the substance of language manifestation, spoken, written or kinesic substance. Second, each substance must have a material to convey the language, hence the consideration of the medium. 1 Next, the modality parameter specifies the spontaneous mode and the edited mode of linguistic formulation. Lastly, the variety parameter refers to standard and non-standard varieties. In DuBartell (cf. 1995), I discuss some of the discourse features of CMC as they relate to the machine architecture. The norms of spoken and written language relate directly to the particular medium in which they are conveyed as we see in e-mail message forms. Vachek writes that „the WRITTEN NORM of language is a system of graphically manifestable language elements whose function is to react to a given stimulus (which, as a rule, is not an urgent one) in a static way, i.e. in a preservable and easily surveyable manner, concentrating particularly on the purely communicative aspect of the approach of the reacting language user" (1973, 16). Much of Vachek's thesis is devoted to the functional justification for a differentiation between spoken and written norms, a justification with which I agree and which I will not repeat here. I would only like to add, if I may, that the members of the linguistic community of CMC have been developing some of the structural norms of CMC such as text-copied dialogues, emoticons, acronyms and the acceptance of misspellings that go uncorrected, among others, aspects of the spontaneous mode and an often non-standard, yet codified, written variety. I say „codified" since there is consensus among users as to text organization, emoticons and the employment of other symbols and icons, for example. The configuration method seeks to account for the patterns and functions found in e-mail messages. This method entails: (1) the examination of text-copy patterns in e-mail messages; (2) the identification of linguistic features arising from the computer medium; (3) the determination of the clusters, or configurations of the linguistic features; (4) the assessment of functions of particular structures based on statistical correspondences; (5) the comparison of CMC linguistic

Methodological Issues in Computer-mediated

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features, configurations and functions with those linguistic (and paralinguistic) features, configurations and functions found in other substances, media, modalities and varieties of language.

3.

C M C as dialogue discourse

While we find variation in the patterns of discourse organization in e-mail messages, I would like to address one of them in particular in order to exemplify the method. CMC as e-mail message affords us the opportunity to study organization as dialogue discourse. I am going to define „dialogue discourse" as a text which contains discourse from two or more speakers engaged what appears to be conversational interaction, and „text" as the language data. I am not going to place any presuppositions on the nature of the text, nor will I agree that some instances of language do not constitute a text. The text then is simply „la parole" under examination (cf. Skalicka, 1948). Not all e-mail messages feature text-copying; in my database of 403 messages, 199, slightly less than half, do not. However, in the 204 e-mail messages which do feature textcopying, we see dialogue discourse in one text, that is, in one e-mail message. Text-copying is the inclusion of discourse from another e-mail message into the current speaker's own e-mail message and it is often the case that the text-copy contains a text-copy. The result of textcopying is the lexicalization of conversational turn-taking. Now, a most interesting property of the computer medium is that turn-taking, which is a paralinguistic concern in other media, becomes a linguistic feature in the computer medium. An example follows below.

»> »> »> »> >» »>

»

. I will be attending a conference in St. Petersburg Russia : 17-27 May 19095 (1995). The conference organizers can I stayed at the St. Petersburg Hotel but I don't recall the rates... good average hotel as far as accommodations; entertainment room (small combo)

» Y o u could stay at Hotel Europe. Very swank & expensive, best in » S t . Petersburg. Or you can stay where I stayed, at the Soviet »Skaya. Reasonable, clean, good access to Nevksy Prospect. » B e sure to visit the Hermitage —rivalsthe Louvre.

» >

>A11 of the old soviet style hotels (such as the Moskva, the St. Petersburg, the Morskaya, the Sovietskaya) >are ugly as sin and leave many things to be desired. I understand that some may be undergoing renovation, so >maybe someone has an update. The Grand Hotel Europe is indeed very nice, and very expensive ($240 a night >last summer, probably more now) as are the Astoria and the Nevsky Palace. There are alternatives, however, >that would entail some compromises, but may be superior choices if you do not want to spend a lot of money, >depending upon where you need to be. If you are willing to walk a bit or take public transportation, there is a >wide variety of possibilities, keeping in mind that the metro, buses, trolleys, are exceedingly crowded during. >the rush hours. It is possible to get accommodations with locals, which is a wonderful way to live there, and even > to get a short term apartment rental.

244

Deborah DuBartell

I was in St. Pete in August of 93.1 agree with most of what has been said above. The Moskva is large - 1600 rooms or so. It isn't lavish or plush but is still a pretty good hotel for the price. The dining room will feed you very well - steak dinner for 5 dollars US. It is also well located. A couple of things I didn't really enjoy was the fact that you had to hand in your key when you left to a „hall monitor" and there are also a few people out front of the hotel who are asking for money - both pretty minor points. Go have fun, GO TO THE HERMITAGE, GO TO KATHERINE THE GREAT'S PALACE IN PUSHKIN. And also buy caviar if that's your thing. Enjoy.

Text-copying is one of the features of CMC which is reminiscent of spoken conversations. However, it would be a mistake to conclude that e-mail messages and the speech of face-to-face interaction exhibit the same form of conversational structuring. First of all, and obviously, conversational turn-taking in speech is a paralinguistic behavior; it is not linguistic. In e-mail, however, as I mentioned above, the turn-taking is lexicalized; it is now a linguistic feature. A more significant difference between e-mail messages with text-copied discourse and face-to-face conversations, in my opinion, is that in spoken conversations, participants are limited to organizing their own talk. In e-mail messages, on the other hand, the current speaker can textcopy an entire message or a portion of a message and arrange and even re-arrange the discourse of others with reference to his own communicative agenda. So what we have then, is a message which looks conversational because there is (lexicalized) turn-taking, but which does not, in fact, observe the same rules of social behavior which govern spoken language interactions. Hence, although there is discourse dialogue in e-mail, the dialogue is the product of the speaker's interaction with the computer technology, and not solely of his interactions with the other speakers, which differ in process from the medium of face-to-face interaction. Nevertheless, since, in those e-mail messages which display text-copying, the current speaker is selecting and arranging external discourse into his own discourse to create the larger discourse structure which will be his e-mail message, the study of CMC requires us to acknowledge discourse dialogue and to account for it, although discourse dialogue has been disregarded as a possibility by some linguists (cf. Van Dijk 1977). However, omission of any form, pattern or function of language need not be the case if we review whatever presuppositions we have made about language given the appearance of new language forms, patterns and functions that accompany new technologies. The point I wish to make is that it is better to reconsider our theoretical notions when given the opportunity to examine language data then to make the data fit our preconceptions about language. If we are going to study the nature of language then we must approach the language data with a willingness to change any pre-established ideas which are not applicable to the data. I am reminded at this point by Garvin's view, expressed in many of his lectures and talks, that a grammar is a description of language guided by a theoretical perspective, but not a theory of language in and of itself, and that the description should advance those necessary adjustments in the theory which will accommodate the language data. The configuration method facilitates this end.

Methodological Issues in Computer-mediated

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There are three text-copy patterns in the e-mail database. The sequential pattern is the most prevalent (61.27% of the messages). In the sequential pattern, text-copied excerpts appear in chronological order (see example above). In the reverse sequential pattern, the excerpts appear in reverse chronological order; only 5 messages follow this pattern. The non-sequential pattern accounts for 36.28% of the messages. In this case, the current speaker re-arranges the discourse so that speakers appear to be taking more than one turn at talking (see example below). In a recent paper (DuBartell, forthcoming) I offer a detailed analysis of text-copying, the functions of adhesion2 and an explanation as to the assignment of a text-copy pattern to an e-mail message with respect to the speaker's intent in the construction of the discourse. For instance, the sequential and the non-sequential patterns correspond with the functions of chronological tracking and point reference, respectively. Chronological tracking preserves real time order of speaker participation with each speaker's discourse being text-copied in one „block". Point reference is achieved by lexical-grammatical repetitions, or bonds (Hoey 1995), and this organization generally requires multiple text-copied portions of any given speaker's discourse. In general, regardless of the particular pattern, the text-copying of one speaker's message into that of the current speaker lexicalizes conversational turn-taking and this feature of CMC is a product of the machine architecture. > > > >

: I need an estimate on how long it will : take to drive from, let's say, Rennes, : across France to, let's say Metz. Don't : plan to stop in Paris or any other place,

According to the Minitel Michelin guide server, Rennes to Metz is 671km, and will take 6hr 36 minutes, of which 661km (6hrs 18 minutes) is on Autoroutes (what in the US would be called freeways, except in France they aren't free. It will cost 225Francs in tolls). To avoid the toll roads and stick to the back roads is 660km, and will take 9h 22 minutes. This assumes that you aren't trying to do this at peak times like the first weekend in August, when you can probably double the journey time. > > > >

: somewhere. Also, I can't tell from my : maps whether Fiance has anything equivalent : to autobahns or motorway, or USA interstae : highways.

It has Autoroutes, which are very similar to US freeways, except that: a) they aren't free b) they are in vastly superior condition. No potholes. At all. c) The speed limit is 130km/h (82mph) d) Outside of peak times they are quiet. Steve

There are many other features particular to the computer medium. In messages with text-copied portions of external discourse, only the current speaker's message is unmarked. All previous

Deborah DuBartell

246

speakers are typically marked by „>", the speaker identification symbol.3 It is not uncommon in the non-sequential pattern to find that a speaker's identification symbol is text-copied although his message is not; thus, CMC discourse dialogues may have a silent speaker trace. In the nonsequential message above, „:" is the first speaker and the discourse of „>" has not been copied by the current speaker although the current speaker had to text-copy from „>'s" message since the symbol remains. That is, we know from the symbol trace that „>" was part of the discourse dialogue in an earlier message. Again, such a construction relates directly to the computer programming. The silent speaker trace in an e-mail might at first seem familiar because we can imagine a conversational group in which one or two persons are listening only. But to be silent in a spoken conversation is the listener's choice. I would like to comment now on norms and speaker choices. Certain CMC norms are the result of a speaker's choice (in addition to the machine architecture), but these choices are made by the current speaker. It is the current speaker who decides whether or not to text-copy and if so which pattern of organization (sequential, nonsequential, reverse sequential) to employ. The current speaker also decides then which excerpts to copy; he can leave a speaker silent. The current speaker has all the power to organize the dialogue discourse and this is unlike the situation of most spoken language interactions. E-mail as dialogue discourse is not the result of participant interactions and group dynamics since the speakers are not co-present in time or space. The norms of CMC dialogue discourse do not arise from the same set of prerequisites which apply to spoken conversations. Given just a few examples of the significant differences between CMC e-mail and spoken conversations, the method used must clarify the distinction between truly common linguistic features and apparently common features in the evaluation of the two different media and substances of language transmission.

4.

Some features in c o m m o n with other forms of language

At this point I would like to mention some features of CMC e-mail messages which are shared by other forms of language. One feature is the use of a non-standard variety. One aspect of the nonstandard use of language in e-mail is flame-mail, which a respondent defined for me as the „overly emotional" use of language, sometimes including „vulgar" expressions such as „cursewords". We can easily think of such examples from our experience with spoken conversations. The use of non-standard written language in e-mail is characterized by sentence fragments, faulty punctuation and spelling, certain abbreviations, specific lexemes and lexical constructions and the appearance of emoticons. I would like to point out that we do find some emoticons, such as the smiley face, in handwritten (not printed) language, although in e-mail their appearance is regulated by the keyboard set-up so that their spatial rotation is different. We see non-standard writing in graffiti, notes, letters and in the written communications of persons not well educated in the standard written dialect.

Methodological Issues in Computer-mediated Discourse

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CMC discourse may be spatially organized like other print forms; that is, there can be paragraphs, footnotes, graphs, tables, spelling and punctuation conventions; perhaps the most obvious feature that CMC shares with other forms of written language, specifically English in this database, is the writing system itself- the Roman alphabet.4 Like the spoken language of face-to-face interaction and the written language of notes which may be passed to someone sitting close by, CMC may be characterized by the spontaneous use of language formulation, often non-standard. On the other hand, CMC, like this manuscript, live speeches and pre-recorded broadcasts, may be edited. Finally, like other forms of language, CMC has emphasis marking devices, such as emoticons, the „>", underlining, bold face, italics, etc., as do other forms of language, both spoken and written (although the actual devices will vary).

5.

W h a t type of evaluation procedure?

It is the job of the discourse analyst to discover the structures and functions within a text. So then it is also the job of the linguist to come up with an effective evaluation procedure. This is not only a reasonable goal within linguistics, but a necessary one. Garvin reminds us that „the relevance of such a clearly circumscribed evaluation procedure will be insured by the anticipation that the goal of the analysis is attainable by a succession of individual analytic steps" (1960-1, 63). In short, he recommends a review of goals in terms of the practical side of the evaluation procedure, namely that the procedure allow the accomplishment of a manageable analytic task; he advises consideration of the objectives so that the linguist does not embark on a procedure which will turn out to be impractical, that is, all-encompassing. This is very useful advice. The configuration method advances an effective evaluation procedure which, for comparative purposes, permits the description of CMC discourse patterns and functions in terms of written norms as a factor of the speaker's choices as well as the constraints of the machine architecture. And that is all. The method is effective because it is limited in its steps and scope. I have not attempted to account for all aspects of CMC by one method since the study of other aspects of CMC will raise other questions about the data which will require the development of other methods to answer them. Hence, I end at the beginning, where I mentioned that the configuration method is an evaluation procedure which is designed to lead to answers to particular questions about the seeming similarity of e-mail messages to spoken language conversations and other forms of writing.

Notes 1. The media for spoken language are face-to-face interaction, television, radio, telephone and other electroacoustic devices; the media for written language are fax, print, manuscript, e-mail, inscription, etc.

248

Deborah DuBartell

2. Adhesion, a type of cohesion, refers to the semantic relations between the current speaker's discourse and the text-copied portions which it contains. 3. „>" is employed as the speaker identification symbol 94% of the time; other symbols are „:" and Occasionally a person's initials function as the symbol. 4. Of course, CMC is written in other writing systems as well.

References DuBartell, D. (1994), Language and Technological Media: Devising Parameters for the Relationships between Speech and Writing. In: Cmejrkovâ, S./DaneS, F./Havlovà, E. (eds.), Writing vs Speaking: Language, Text, Discourse, Communication, Tubingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 167-172. DuBartell, D. (1995), Discourse Features of Computer-mediated Communication: 'Spoken-like' and 'Writtenlike'. In: Wârvik, B./Tanskanen, S-K./Hiltunen, R. (eds ), Organization in Discourse, Turku, University of Turku, 231-239. DuBartell, D. (forthcoming), The Functions of Adhesion in Computer-mediated Discourse. Garvin, P. L. (1960-1), Evaluation Procedure in Linguistic Analysis. In: Studies in Linguistics, vol. 15, nos. 3-4, 62-69. Hoey, M. (1995), The Lexical Nature of Intertextuality: A Preliminary Study. In: Warvik, B./Tanskanen, S.K./Hiltunen, R (eds ), Organization in Discourse, Turku: University of Turku, 73-94. SkaliÊka, V. (1948), The Need for a Linguistics of 'la parole'. In: Recueil linguistique de Bratislava 1, 21-39. Vachek, J. (1973), Written Language: General Problems and Problems of English, The Hague: Mouton. Vachek, J. (1989), Written Language Revisited, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Van Dijk, T. (1977), Text and Context: Explorations in the Semantics and Pragmatics of Discourse, London: Longman.

Bernd Naumann Stirbt die deutsche Sprache?1 Überlegungen zum Sprachwandel durch IRC (Internet Relay Chat)

1. Trümmersprache? 2. Sprachwandeltendenzen in IRC-Texten 2.1 Mündlichkeit - Schriftlichkeit 2.2 Phonologie - Orthographie 2.3 Morphologie 2.4 Syntax 2.5 Fachsprache - Alltagssprache 3. Die Sprache von IRC ist lebendiges Deutsch Anmerkungen Literatur

1. Trümmersprache? Im Frühsommer des Jahres 1995 überschrieb der Wissenschaftspublizist Dieter Zimmer einen Artikel in der Wochenzeitung Die Zeit „Sonst stirbt die deutsche Sprache" (Nr. 26 vom 23.6.1995, S. 42). Er vertritt darin die Auffassung, daß die übermächtige Amerikanisierung dem Gegenwartsdeutschen den Garaus machen werde, wenn wir uns nicht dagegen wehren. Als Beleg für seine These fuhrt er Beispiele aus der Werbesprache und vor allem Beispiele aus der elektronischen Kommunikation im Internet an. Er kommt zu dem Schluß, daß das Deutsche sich gegenüber dem Französischen, dem Schwedischen, Spanischen, Niederländischen, Dänischen und Italienischem (in dieser Reihenfolge) am nachgiebigsten zum Amerikanischen verhalte, und er hat dabei geradezu apokalyptische Visionen: Also werden die Kids, die heute ihre Trial- und Error-Odysseen beim Zappen von Quiz-Show zu Actionfilm zu Talk-Show erleben, eines nicht fernen Tages genau diese Trümmersprache für die einzig gute und richtige halten. Und sicher, es ist ja auch eine Sprache, eine heterogene, unebenmäßige, scheckige, teilweise regellose eben, ein besseres Pidgin. Aber die Brücke zum Deutsch der Vergangenheit wird dann abgebrochen sein. Das ist dann eine tote Sprache, eine von vielen. Dann werden wir Engländer, Franzosen, Schweden und Spanier um ihren Eigensinn beneiden. Dann werden die Klügsten ihre Kinder von Anfang an Englisch lernen lassen, damit diese später wenigstens eine Sprache richtig beherrschen.

Das sind starke Worte. Schlimm ist nach Zimmers Meinung weniger das Eindringen von Amerikanismen an sich, fremdsprachliche Einflüsse, Sprachenkontakt hat es im Deutschen immer gegeben, ohne daß die Sprache dabei „gestorben" wäre. Schlimm ist seiner Überzeugung nach die fehlende Anpassung englischer Wörter an deutsche Lautung, Schreibung und Morphologie:

Bernd Naumann

250

In einem deutschen Satz ein Wort wie synthesizer oder thriller einigermaßen richtig auszusprechen, fällt selbst denjenigen oft schwer, die es in einem englischen Satz ohne weiteres über die Lippen brächten. Und wo wäre in einem Wort wie Hardlinerinnen wohl die Grenze zwischen englischer und deutscher Aussprache zu ziehen?

Und weiter:

Substantive müssen mindestens ein Genus und einen Plural erhalten ... Es heißt die Notebooks, aber nicht die Users, sondern die User. Heißt es aber die Modems oder die Moderne? Warum nicht die Modemen? (Die ja von „Modulatoren" abgeleitet sind). Und der oder das"! ... Ein Verb, das sich nicht konjugieren läßt, ist unbrauchbar. Heißt es nun handicapped oder gehandicappfl. Layouted oder gelayoutet oder laygeoutetl Backupt oder backupped oder backgeupt oder upgebackt oder wie? Recycled oder gerecyceW

Es hätte ihm freilich aufallen können, daß diese morphologischen Schwierigkeiten längst nicht nur bei ins Deutsche eingedrungenen englischen Verben auftreten, sondern auch bei guten deutschen, nämlich bei vielen mit Verbzusätzen, also etwa bei bauchreden, haushalten,

hohlschleifen,

hohnlachen,

hohnsprechen,

danksagen,

lobpreisen,

dauerparken,

notlanden,

sackhüpfen,

Schaulaufen, schauspielern, schaustellen, schautanzen, schritthalten, schutzimpfen,

staubsaugen

.... und vielen, vielen anderen. Alles beste deutsche Ware, und, wenn es nach Zimmer geht, dennoch nicht zu gebrauchen, denn auch bei diesen Verben ist den allermeisten Sprachbenutzern durchaus nicht klar, wie sie in unterschiedlichen syntaktischen Zusammenhängen zu konjugieren sind. Ein Blick in den Duden vergrößert eher die Unsicherheit, und die Regeln, die ab 1998 gelten sollen, machen es auch nicht einfacher. Die Verben lichthupen und schautanzen

darf es nach

Duden gar nicht geben, und schritthalten heißt richtig Schritt halten. Bei manchen steht „nur im Infinitiv gebräuchlich" (etwa bei sackhüpfen),

bei manchen „nur im Infinitiv und Partizip I

gebräuchlich" (etwa bei schaulauferi), bei manchen „fast nur im Infinitiv gebräuchlich" (etwa bei schaustellen),

bei manchen „meist nur im Infinitiv und Partizip I gebräuchlich" (etwa bei

hohnlachen). Der derzeit geltende Duden stellt bei hohnlachen frei, ob man ich lache höhn oder ich hohnlache sagen möchte, entsprechend hohngelacht oder ich lachte höhn. Bei dagegen heißt es verbindlich das spricht höhn und hohngesprochen.

hohnsprechen

Nach den künftig geltenden

Regeln darf es nur noch ich hohnlache heißen und das andere Verb ist keins mehr sondern ein Wortgruppenlexem Hohn sprechen. Nach dem geltenden Duden heißt es staubgesaugt, nach dem neuen gestaubsaugt.

Ich breche ab. Es herrscht heillose morphologische Verwirrung. Das

Problem läßt sich nicht normativ lösen. Bei häufigerem Gebrauch in mehreren Textsorten wird sich irgendwann schon eine Version als die allgemein akzeptierte einspielen, die dann zur Norm erhoben werden kann. Nicht anders ist es mit Zimmers englisch-deutschen Beispielen, also kein Grund zur Aufregung. Und was die Hardlinerinnen Ingenieurinnen,

angeht: Seit dem 16. Jahrhundert gibt es im Deutschen das Wort

zwar keine Mischung aus Deutsch und Englisch, sondern eine aus dem damals

einflußreicheren Französischen und Deutschen, aber strukturell durchaus mit dem neueren Wort vergleichbar.

Seit

gut

vierhundert

Jahren

leben

wir

friedlich

mit

sprachzerstörenden Monstrum und mit vielen anderen ähnlichen Mischungen.

diesem

angeblich

Stirbt die deutsche Sprache?

251

Recht hat Zimmer, wenn er bemerkt, daß die von ihm angeprangerten Zustände vor allem in der elektronischen Kommunikation mittels Computer auftreten: Der Computeijargon ist ein gutes Beispiel. Alle Sprachen sind hier dem gleichen Druck ausgesetzt. Es handelt sich um keine bloße Mode, sondern um eine neue Welt voller neuer Dinge, für die keine Sprache Namen hatte und die alle einen Namen benötigen. Dieser Jargon ist zwar eine Fachsprache, aber in dem Maße, in dem der Computer Teil des Alltags wird, gehen große Teile von ihr in die Alltagssprache über.

Neu ist das allerdings nicht: Schon 1991 hatte Wichter dieses Problem in einer ersten, vorläufigen Studie als „vertikale Sprachgeschichte" dargestellt. Er schätzt, daß der Computerwortschatz, der bis zum Ende der 80er Jahre in die deutsche Allgemeinsprache eingedrungen war, etwa 2 Promille beträgt, also nicht sonderlich viel. Natürlich hat sich dieser Trend in den 90er Jahren fortgesetzt und wohl verstärkt, aber im Gegensatz zu Zimmer sieht Wichter (der freilich eher an semantischen Aspekten interessiert ist als an morphologischen) dieses Phänomen durchaus positiv.2 Für diese „neue Welt voller neuer Dinge", die alle aus Amerika kommen und inzwischen international sind, gibt es unter der englischen Sammelbezeichnung „Computer Mediated Communication" (CMC) 3 Termini wie „Computer Conferencing, Electronic Mail, Electronic Publishing, Computer Interviewing, Interactive Text Reading, Group Decision Support Systems, Idea

Generation

Support

Systems,

Human

Machine

Communication,

Multi

Media

Communication, Hypertext, Hypermedia, Linguistic Games". Dies ist zugleich der Titel einer zweibändigen Bibliographie, die auf 862 Seiten viele, viele Arbeiten zu diesen gewiß noch nicht verstaubten Themenbereichen auflistet (Sabourin 1994).

2.

Sprachwandeltendenzen in IRC-Texten

Daß sich die deutsche Gegenwartssprache unter dem Einfluß elektronischer Kommunikationsformen verändert, ist wohl unbestritten. 4 Durch die Aufweichung der traditionellen Grenzen zwischen Print-, auditiven und audiovisuellen Medien im Bereich der sogenannten „Neuen Medien" und durch das damit verbundene Brüchigwerden der Grenze zwischen Individual- und Massenkommunikation

verändert

sich das Kommunikationsverhalten

massiv (siehe

dazu

Weingarten 1990), was sich selbstverständlich auch als Sprachwandel niederschlägt. Ob sich das Deutsche dabei zum guten oder zum schlechten verändert, ist bei Sprachwandel nicht die Frage, Sprachen werden nicht „besser" oder „schlechter", sie passen sich immer den jeweiligen kommunikativen Bedürfnissen ihrer Benutzer an. Natürlich spiegelt Sprache den Geist oder den Ungeist ihrer Benutzer, das haben sprachkritische Untersuchungen wieder und wieder deutlich gemacht. Die Kritik darf aber nicht bei der Sprache ansetzen, sondern zunächst bei den Sachverhalten, die sie ausdrückt. Wenn man meint, die in den „Neuen Medien" benutzte Sprache sei kritikwürdig, dann kann man dies nicht der Sprache anlasten, sondern eben jenem veränderten Kommunikationsverhalten. Sprachkritik ist nur sinnvoll, wenn dahinter Kulturkritik steht.

252

Bernd Naumann

Das kann und will dieser Beitrag nicht leisten, ich will im folgenden lediglich an einigen Punkten skizzenhaft konkretisieren, welche Sprachwandeltendenzen sich in der Sprache der „Neuen Medien" erkennen lassen. Ich kann mich hier nur mit einer Variante von CMC befassen, mit Internet Relay Chat (IRC) in deutschsprachigen Channels5 (ein auch im Englischen etwas irreführender Terminus, denn es handelt sich nicht um „Kanäle" im nachrichtentechnischen Sinne, also um Telephonleitungen oder Frequenzen, sondern um Gruppen von Leuten, die unter einer bestimmten Adresse im Internet miteinander kommunizieren). IRC ist eine dialogische, multilaterale, zeitgleiche, on-line Kommunikationsform zwischen prinzipiell beliebig vielen Personen, die sich an beliebigen Orten mit ihren Rechnern in einem gemeinsamen Channel eingeloggt haben. Unter den über 5000 Channels, die die universitären Rechenzentren in Deutschland ihren Benutzern anbieten, sind etwa 50 deutschsprachige. Auf den meisten treffen sich Studenten, die zu regelmäßigen Zeiten über Gott und die Welt miteinander quatschen wollen. Es gibt aber auch themenbezogene, die meisten über Sex (von „Analsex" bis „Vampirsex"), einige über Religion, über Computer, Sport, Politik ....

2.1 Mündlichkeit - Schriftlichkeit Das auffallendste Merkmal der Sprache, die die Teilnehmer bei der Kommunikationsform IRC benutzen, ist, daß sie Charakteristika mündlicher und schriftlicher Sprache aufweist. Das ist wiederholt bemerkt worden.6 Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit ist natürlich zunächst medial gebunden an Laut bzw. Buchstabe, an Gesprochenes bzw. Geschriebenes. Bekanntlich ist Sprechen in dialogischer Form, also in der Normalform, aber nicht auf den akustischen Kanal reduziert, sondern es spielen (fast) immer auch visuelle Faktoren (Gestik, Mimik) eine Rolle, olfaktorische und taktile (Proxemik), dazu vielerlei Wissen und Annahmen über situative Gegebenheiten jeder Sprechsituation und aller Gesprächsteilnehmer. Ebenso ist Schriftlichkeit mit der Beschränkung auf graphische Realisierung nur unzureichend beschrieben, es geht hier auch um das Auftreten bestimmter Sprachformen, um ein besonderes Verhältnis zur sprachlichen Norm. Normnahe Sprachformen, die charakteristisch sind für Schriftlichkeit, können auch in gesprochener Sprache verwendet werden, etwa in Reden, und umgekehrt können normferne Elemente, die charakteristisch sind für gesprochene Sprache, auch in geschriebener Sprache auftreten (siehe dazu Weigand 1993). Dazu ist in den letzten Jahren viel und Grundsätzliches geschrieben worden (siehe den 1994 von Cmejrkovä u.a. herausgegebenen Sammelband oder den zusammenfassenden Aufsatz von Schaefer 1994). Durch die intensive Beschäftigung mit gesprochener Sprache seit den 70er Jahren ist eine Fülle charakteristischer Merkmale auf allen Ebenen (Laut-, Form-, Satzebene) herausgearbeitet worden. So gut wie alle diese Merkmale finden sich in der Kommunikationsform IRC. Es handelt sich hier um gesprochene Sprache, die aus technischen Gründen in schriftlicher Form realisiert wird. Die „Gesprächspartner" schreiben ihre Beiträge auf der Tastatur und lesen auf dem Bildschirm die Beiträge der anderen, sie

Stirbt die deutsche

Sprache?

253

empfinden aber das, was sie tun, tatsächlich eher als Gespräch. Das zeigen immer wieder auftauchende Sequenzen wie hoert sich mal gut an - haettest ja ruhig soft sagen koennen - du stellst zu bloede fragen - was meckerst du denn? - muessen wir ihr das wirklich erst sagen? du wolltest sagen... Bei einer Kommunikationsform, die sich nicht face-to-face (neuerdings auch manchmal als face2face geschrieben) abspielt, aber dennoch Gesprächscharakter postuliert, können visuelle Kommunikationselemente wie Gestik und Mimik transponiert werden. Das geschieht vor allem durch „Smileys", also durch tastaturmögliche Zeichen wie :-) , bzw :-( , die beliebig verstärkt werden können: -))))) , bzw.: -((((( . Hier spielt natürlich auch ein spielerisches Element eine Rolle (die Kommunikationspartner in IRC sind in ihrer überwiegenden Mehrheit junge Studenten) und der Einfluß von Comics. Es gibt mittlerweile hunderte dieser nonverbalen Visualisierungen, wirklich verwendet werden nur ganz wenige.7 Interessant ist nun, daß sich bei Befragungen herausgestellt hat, daß derartige Smileys inzwischen auch in nicht-elektronische Kommunikationsformen eindringen, also etwa in handgeschriebene Briefe. Mehrere meiner Studenten haben mir versichert, auch hier würden sie Smileys benützen, weil sie sich dran gewöhnt hätten. Auch paraverbale Elemente wie Intonation und Tonstärke lassen sich in elektronischer Kommunikation auf der Tastatur ausdrücken. Man muß dazu nur seinen Finger länger auf einem Tastaturzeichen lassen: Kloooooooooooooooooa! - eyyyyyyyyyyyyy! - byyyyyyyyyyyyyy Williiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! - iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigitttttttttttttttttttttttttttt!,8

2.2 Phonologie - Orthographie 9 IRC-Texte werden im Internet verbreitet. Hier kann man aber, wenn man sicher gehen will, nur internationale Zeichensätze gebrauchen, also keine Buchstaben mit Akzenten, keine Umlaute und kein . Manche Systeme können mit diesen Zeichen umgehen, manche nicht, deshalb ist es auf jeden Fall sicher, sie nicht zu benutzen, denn man weiß ja nicht, über welche Rechner die eigenen Botschaften laufen. Die neuen Duden-Regeln haben zwar den Gebrauch von reduziert, aber nicht aufgehoben, was konsequenter gewesen wäre. Was die normierenden Wissenschaftler nicht geschafft haben, wird vielleicht CMC schaffen, den völligen Verzicht auf (in der Schweiz kommt man ja schon lange ohne aus). Es ist ratsam, Umlaute im Internet als Doppelbuchstaben zu schreiben, aber das ist natürlich etwas umständlich, denn man muß zwei statt eine Taste bedienen. Und da es bei IRC auf Schnelligkeit ankommt, vor allem, wenn viele Teilnehmer sich in einem Channel treffen, sinnen manche auf Vereinfachung. Bei der Buchstabenverbindung scheint dies am leichtesten möglich, einige benutzen hier , also das auch in der API benutzte Zeichen für den Umlaut im Deutschen. Anstelle von könnte man natürlich schreiben, das würde nur in ganz wenigen Fällen zu Verwechslungen fuhren, die zudem kontextuell immer disambiguiert werden könnten, aber das wird nach meinen Beobachtungen nur sehr selten getan, und wenn, dann möglicherweise eher unabsichtlich. Für

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254

bietet sich im Moment noch keine Lösung an, vielleicht irgendwann im Zusammenhang der Entwicklung eines universellen Zeichensystems, ISO oder UNICODE (siehe dazu Weingarten 1995). Gravierender als die möglichen Veränderungstendenzen bei und bei der Schreibung von Umlauten scheint der Gebrauch der Groß- und Kleinschreibung zu sein. Manche schreiben konsequent alles klein, aber viele scheinen auf Groß- oder Kleinschreibung keinen Wert zu legen, d.h. sie schreiben, wie es ihnen gerade in die Tastatur kommt, Substantive grundsätzlich schon groß, weil sie das so gelernt haben, aber wenn es bei der Schnelligkeit mit der Shift-Taste nicht klappt, macht es auch nichts. Das ist das Entscheidende: Es spielt für viele einfach keine Rolle, ob Substantive groß oder klein geschrieben werden. Interessant ist nun, daß dies auch bei einer anderen Variante von CMC so ist, bei der E-mail Kommunikation. Hier kann man - allerdings vorausgesetzt, man verfugt über einen komfortablen Editor - in Ruhe nochmal durchlesen, was man geschrieben hat, und seinen Text beliebig oft verbessern, solange, bis er gefällt. Man kann dabei natürlich auch alle Tippfehler tilgen. Aber auch hier kann man feststellen, daß manche grundsätzlich klein schreiben, und nur ganz wenige scheren

sich drum,

ob

sie die Großschreibung

korrekt

verwendet

haben:

Groß-

und

kleingeschriebene Substantive wechseln willkürlich. Wer will, schreibt Substantive groß, wer dies nicht will, läßt es bleiben, und die meisten schreiben, wie sie gerade Lust haben. Der folgende Text, eine Sequenz von etwa einer halben Minute, soll dies illustrieren. Er stammt aus einem Channel mit der Bezeichnung „Bussibaer", auf dem junge Leute einfach miteinander schwätzen. Er wurde im März 1996 aufgezeichnet, die log-ins wurden anonymisiert. *** Sebi (#######) has joined #bussibaer esg: cu hallo *** Ri has quit IRC (Leaving) * MadSnooop hat jetzt so um die 50000 zeilen bekommen (waren auch ein paar "Guten-MOrgen-Gruess e dabei).... SEBI!!!!!! Snooopy bist du endgueltig verrueckt geworden?;-) geil! Hallo ESG > esg: aha. Komm zu mir, ich bin der chef CU RI Sebi ???? Bist Du auch in meiner zeit

???? Sebi : Auch vom Lag-Monster erwischt worden ?? Und jetzt im Bussibaer-Himmel.... Snooopy keine ahnung, in welcher bist du denn? Sebi? *** charlie (#######) has joined #bussibaer Snooopy im mittelalter? * MadSnooop hat einen Heiligenschein und eine kleine Harfe *klimper* *zupf* Samson ja bitte?

255

Stirbt die deutsche Sprache? Sei gegruesset, Weib! moin welches weib? moin charlie

*Towanda fyhlt sich von marv ziemlich durchgeschyttelt und ybernimmt jetzt mal die leitung. cousel: ist auf einer Sitzung, danach pryfung

Nicht zur Erfüllung der deutschen Sprachnormen wird Groß- und Kleinschreibung verwendet, sondern um paraverbale Effekte zu erzielen ähnlich denen, die oben skizziert worden sind. Wenn jemand etwa VersoehnungsHUG schreibt, oder DU, oder nicht mit MIR, oder SEI STILL...., dann dient Großschreibung ausschließlich expressiven Zwecken. So ähnlich war das schon mal in der Geschichte der deutschen Sprache, in der Zeit vor der Aufklärung. Auch hier benutzte man Großbuchstaben fiir expressive Zwecke: GOTT, oder Unser HErr. Reste davon sind noch erhalten in solchen Schreibsequenzen wie Heiliger Vater, die auch die jüngste Rechtschreibreform überlebt haben.

2.3 Morphologie Die Morphologie von IRC-Texten weist alle Kennzeichen gesprochener Sprache auf, wie Verschleifungen, Kolloquialismen, Verkürzungen und Mischformen aus Deutsch und Englisch... Anstelle eines zusammenhängenden Textstücks, ist es hier veilleicht angebracht, eine kurze zusammenhanglose Beispielsammlung zu geben (aus verschiedenen Channels,

Mitschnitte

ebenfalls vom März 1996), Formen, die sich hundertfach finden und die niemandem, der IRC betreibt, sonderlich auffallen. nachts isses bestimmt besser - oder kamma da überhaupt aufhören - watt willste denn mit. . . - mal guggen gern gscheng - moin, goil! : -))))) - bissu angesoffen? - hassu schon Zatcat Bilda gesaehn? - koa Account? moin, moin, tack! - Tach, hast du oda daine froindin? - pffiff, sag mir lieba wie ich das abstelle - hassu irc auf dem drucker umgeleite ode was? - wo steht dadd? - wers eigenüich datt lange elend mit die wenige haaren auf die fotos? - wenn ich mich irgendwo einlogge, fracht er nam loginname - gibbet nich! - warum haddu mich gekickt? - ach du sch .. bis Hamburg brauch ich ja nen tach! - dann entsteht söhn doller Pilz in der Luft - gelle, tschuessi kinners - wiebidde? - biddae, gern gschehn ...

Hier kann man also nicht von Sprachwandel sprechen, sondern nur beobachten, daß die elektronische Kommunikationsform IRC dazu beiträgt, den Unterschied zwischen gesprochener und

geschriebener

Sprache

zu

minimieren.

Aber

dazu

tragen

auch

viele

andere

Kommunikationsformen bei, die Sprache der Medien, die Werbesprache etc., IRC liegt hier lediglich im Trend.

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Bernd Naumann

2.4 Syntax Die durchschnittliche Satzlänge nimmt im Deutschen seit der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts immer mehr ab, das hat Eggers schon 1973 statistisch nachgewiesen. In manchen Textsorten macht sich dies stärker bemerkbar als in anderen. Vor allem für die in Zeitungen auftretenden Textsorten gibt es dazu statistische Untersuchungen (etwa Mittelberg 1967). Bei der Kommunikationsform IRC herrscht eine starke Tendenz zum Einzeilensatz: Je mehr Teilnehmer sich in einem Channel zur gleichen Zeit versammeln, desto schwieriger wird die Kommunikation und desto kürzer müssen die Beiträge der einzelnen ausfallen, damit überhaupt eine Chance für einen Dialog besteht. Ideal sind etwa sechs bis acht Teilnehmer, es gibt aber auch Channels mit über fünfzig Teilnehmern. Hier sind dann schnelles Reaktionsvermögen und vor allem ein sehr gutes Gedächtnis vonnöten, denn Bildschirme geben ja immer nur einen kleinen Teil der gerade ablaufenden Gesprächssequenzen wieder. Gleichzeitiges „Sprechen" muß ja linearisiert werden, d.h. wenn viele nahezu gleichzeitig „sprechen", wirkt sich dies auf den Bildschirmen der Teilnehmer durch sehr schnelle Textabfolge aus, die nur der überblicken kann, wer sehr schnell schreiben kann. Im folgenden Textbeispiel (Mitschnitt April 1995) „reden" weniger als zehn Leute miteinander, für IRC also eine durchaus akzeptable Kommunikationssituation. Dennoch ist es schon hier nicht einfach, das zusammenzulesen, was zusammengehört. Ein paar zusammengehörende Dialogsequenzen lassen sich ausmachen, freilich viel leichter off-line am ausgedruckten log file als on-line während der zeitgleichen Kommunikation. Auf die „Drohung" von in Zeile 2 antworten etwa in Zeile 7 und in Zeile 8, worauf in Zeile 10 den Dialog mit einer Frage weiterfuhrt, auf die in Zeile 12 antwortet. variiert in Zeile 15 das Thema mit einer Zusatzinformation („gelbe Füße"), auf die in Zeile 18 eingeht (dazwischen schiebt sich in Zeile 17 mit einer Wiederaufnahme von 2). Das Unterthema „gelb" wird darauf zum Hauptthema (Zeilen 22, 23, 25), dann versandet der Dialog und andere Dialogpartner werden tonangebend. So gut wie alle Beiträge sind Einzeilenbeiträge. 1 *** Horsti ( ) has joined #muenster 2 * Haus droht: jeder, der kein HausJPEG haben will, is ein potentielles Knuddel-Opfer !! 3 cyber: sach ich doch, is mein ctcp nicht schoen gewesen ? :) 4 padder: Moin auch, heee, wann bist du denn reingekommen? 5 maxi: irce schon seit laengerer zeit, bin aber selten aufm Channel:) 6 paul: pass auf ich komme gleich mal rueber *grins* 7 haus: unterstehe dich »droh* 8 haus: *argl* das ist eine harte drohung :) 9 Maxi: hallo 10 Sledge: hast du n JPEG von dir ??? *ablach* 1 l huhu Horsti! 12 Haus: ich will trotzdem kein Haus-GIF ! BAEH ! 13*** arti ( ) has joined #muenster 14 reeeeee 15 haus: das mit den gelben fuessen :)

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16*** BOGI sets mode: +o arti 17* Cord knuddelt Haus freiwillig ;-) 18 Haus: Klar doch ! Guck mal in meine Homepage ! :) 19 re arti 20 haus, na dann gib mal her :) 21 jacki: achso... 22 Bilbo: DIE SIND NICHT GELB ! 23 Bilbo: gelb ??? ntsc-gelb, also pal-gruen meinst du :) 24 BOGI: re Thx :) 25 haus: naja, irgendwie verschimmelt:) 26 maxi: na, wie gehts ? 27 Padder:Komm doch! komm doch! Traust dich doch eh nicht. Aetschiobaetsch! 28 Jacki: das neueste oder das beste ? 29 Bilbo: Du hast ja keine Ahnung ! 30 s;edge: wie war noch mal deine url ? 31* padder knuddelt Jacki! 32 Bilbo: achso, sag das doch gleich :) 33 horsti: bescheiden 34 sledge: haha, ich habs ja live gerochen :) 35 paul: baetsch! 36 haus: natuerlich das neueste „UND" beste .. 37 Bilbo: ja, welche denn? :) Meinereiner hat nicht nur eine homepage [PROTZMODE = ON] Man sieht: die syntaktischen Strukturen sind hier ähnlich aufgelöst wie im face-to-face Dialog: Ellipsen, Anakoluthe, Einwortsätze begegnen zuhauf. Die von Glück/Sauer (1990, 44-53) und Glück/Sauer (1995, 109-112) postulierten Tendenzen, die sich vor allem auf die Stellung des finiten Verbs beziehen, können in IRC Texten nicht festgestellt werden, weil kurze, einzeilige syntaktische Sequenzen keine komplexeren Syntagmen zulassen.

2.5

Fachsprache - Alltagssprache

Wie verhalten sich die Fachsprache der elektronischen Medien und die

Alltagssprache

zueinander? Dazu zunächst zwei kurze IRC-Vergleichstexte, beide vom Frühjahr 1996, einer aus einem Channel, der sich „chillout" nennt, ein anderer fuhrt die anspielungsreiche Bezeichnung „ixthys" (= griechisch „Fisch", das steht für ). (1)

Session Start: Wed Apr 03 10:59:35 1996 * Logging #chillout to: [#chillou.log] > hi * TIS muss es dann bloss wieder ziehen TIS: Weil Tekken 2 noch nichtmal in Japan drausen ist (für PSX) und mir NIEMAND erzählen kann, dass namco Tekken 2 erst für PCs bringt als für PSX !!! > huch, ein Channel voller opeiators tis..was braucht mann denn da fuer hardware? Smart-E: naja, dann glaubs halt nich

258

Bernd Naumann Smart-E: exakt! *** Hoopoe (#######) has joined #chillout *** Nagilum sets mode: +o Hoopoe * Nagilum glaubt TIS verwechselt da was! Robin: moeglichst Pentzium + 3D-Beschleunigerk arte (also Diamond Edge oder Matrox Millenium) smart-e:noch kein amirc :( * soll ich dich deoppen, kicken und bannen :)))? *** Nagilum was kicked from #chillout by TIS ( nagilum: hast du mal amitcp4.3 geholt ? Hoopoe: auf mainstreet ist nur 4.2 TIS: was ist jetzt mit VP Nagilum: gestern hab ich da noch 4.3 gesehen Nagilum: hast dus tortzdem ? hoopoe. , wie siehts aus mit new xox? *soIl ich dich deoppen, kicken und bannen :))?

(2)

Session Start: Tue Apr 02 10:36:36 1996 * Logging #ixthys to: [#ixthys.log] > wo ist Jesus? > schweigen.... oder wie? hm, vermutlich eher: it h a s n t been decided yet hi y es kommt aber auf den kontext an y hi y: ueberall:) * del lagged gewaltig :( > wo denn z.B.? y: na, genau neben dir :) > kann das sein? y: warum nciht y: ich denke, dass man das nicht mit unseren Dimensionen vergleichen darf > die vierte, fünfte... dimension oder wie? > Astralöleib? > Protonenplasma? > keine Antwort oder lag? y: hm, ich weiss nicht ob wir die Vorstellung, dass gott ueberall irgendwie fassen koennen y: ach was * grins* aber Jesus ist Gott und Gott ist nicht auf unsere Dimensionen beschraenkt y: wichtig ist: er lebt heute und ist uns Menschen ganz nah > seid Ihr k oder e? y: hier haengt es gewaltig! > oder s? > jesus scheint hier ganz schön in den Leitungen rumzupfuschen! * del ist e y: s? y: evan y: ich weiss nicht, ob das der gruns ist...

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259

grund > s(cientology) y. schlechte Erfahrungen mit Jesus gemacht?

Der erste Text ist eine Kommunikation über Computerprobleme. Hier wird selbstverständlich massiv entsprechende Fachterminologie eingesetzt, das, was Zimmer „Computeijargon" nennt. Beim zweiten, ein Austausch über religiöse Fragen, begegnet Fachterminologie kaum, nur die Form lag10 in ihren verschiedenen Abwandlungen taucht auf. Computersprache dringt also selbst in der elektronischen Kommunikation nur in Teilbereiche der Alltagssprache ein, längst nicht in alle. Schon Wichter (1991) hatte festgestellt: Computerterminologie dringt in die Alltagssprache nur sehr begrenzt ein. Die meisten IRC Texte weisen davon nur minimale Spuren auf. Und wenn schon Computeijargon nur zum kleinen Teil in CMC eindringt, dann noch zu einem sehr viel kleineren in die Alltagssprache.

3. Die Sprache von IRC ist lebendiges Deutsch Über die ästhetische Qualität der phonologischen und morphologischen Mischformen, die beim Eindringen amerikanischer Fachtermini in die deutsche Alltagssprache entstehen, kann man natürlich streiten. Dagegen würde aber wohl kein „loi Toubon"11 helfen, das sich Zimmer auch für Deutschland wünscht. Auch in Frankreich bleibt dieses Gesetz bisher weitgehend wirkungslos. Daß dieses Eindringen aber dem Deutschen den Lebensfaden abschneiden wird, es zur toten Sprache macht, erscheint abwegig, aus mehreren Gründen. Einmal zeigen sich sehr ähnliche Sprachwandeltendenzen durch CMC auch in anderen Sprachen, vor allem die Verwischung der Grenzen zwischen Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit und die zwischen Individual- und Massenkommunikation. Zum anderen machen die hier vorgestellten deutschen Textbeispiele deutlich, daß die in der elektronischen Kommunikationsform IRC verwendete Sprache lediglich im Deutschen angelegte und seit langem auch von der Dialoganalyse beobachtete Sprachwandeltendenzen verstärken, auf der Ebene der Schreibung durch die liberale Handhabung der Groß- und Kleinschreibung, auf der Formebene und der syntaktischen Ebene durch das massive Eindringen sprechsprachlicher Formen und Syntagmen in geschriebene Sprache. Wichtig scheint mir auch der spielerische und durchaus kreative Umgang mit den Zeichen, die die Tastatur zur Verfugung stellt, als Ausdruck paraverbaler und nonverbaler Elemente: IRC ist eine dialogische, elektronische Kommunikationsform, die spielfreudig, witzig, experimentierfreudig und kreativ mit der deutschen Sprache umgeht. Dies ist kein Zeichen nahenden Todes. Wäre ich Raucher, könnte ich zum Abschluß synästhetisch und IRC-typisch sagen: *ich geh jetzt mal in ruhe eine ===

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Anmerkungen 1. Dieser Beitrag setzt da ein, wo der von 1997 endet, der sich mit den Modalitäten der IRC-Kommunikation befaßt. Insofern bilden beide Beiträge eine Einheit und es wird in diesem öfters auf jenen Bezug genommen werden müssen. 2. Am Ende seines Buches kommt er zu dem Schluß: „Die Änderungen im Wortschatz sind ... bedeutsam. Dabei geht es nicht einmal vordringlich um die rein quantitativen Aspekte der fachlichen Erweiterung; das eigentlich Erstaunliche ist der qualitative Aspekt: die Niveausteigerung an Komplexität .... Denn der hinzuerworbene Wortschatz ist keine stilistisch, regional oder sonstwie bedingte synonymische, in der Sache leerlaufende Erweiterung, kein nur auf die Vermehrung von Signifikanten abzielender Ausbau des Wortschatzes, er ist vielmehr gekoppelt mit dem Erweib eines neuen, hochkomplexen Wissensgebietes." (127f ). 3. Die inzwischen schon kaum noch überschaubare Fachliteratur zum Thema CMC stammt meist aus Amerika oder ist zumindest in englischer Sprache verfaßt. Es gibt aber natürlich auch schon viele deutschsprachige Beiträge von Linguisten, Soziologen und Psychologen. Schmitz (1995) fuhrt in seinem „Lagebericht" zum Thema „Neue Medien" insgesamt 248 Titel auf, von denen genau 147 in den Jahren zwischen 1990 und Ende 1994 veröffentlicht wurden. Im deutschsprachigen Bereich wird CMC meist übersetzt als „computervermittelte Kommunikation" (so auch im Titel des Buches von Pelz, 1993 oder im Beitrag von Höflich, 1994). Diese umfangreiche Fachliteratur ist z.T. traditionell gedruckt und in Bibliographien aller Art (auch auf CD-Roms) zusammengestellt, z.T. steht sie aber auch als elektronisch gespeicherte Texte oder zumindest als Abstracts im Internet zur Verfügung, wo (fast) jedermann sie abrufen und sich selber ausdrucken kann, im deutschsprachigen Bereich etwa unter den www-Adressen der Universitäten Köln und Essen. Allen bibliographischen Zugängen ist gemeinsam, daß soziologisch orientierte Beiträge wesentlich zahlreicher sind als sprachwissenschaftlich ausgerichtete. Der Index der MLA weist seit 1981 nur 16 sprachwissenschaftlich relevante Beiträge zum Thema CMC aus, sociofile verzeichnet etwa im gleichen Zeitraum 37 soziologisch relevante Beiträge, also mehr als das doppelte. Bei anderen, sachverwandten Stichworten, etwa Multimedia Communication ist dies nicht anders. 4. Sprachwandeltendenzen des Gegenwartsdeutschen hat man nach dem Krieg zunächst am Einfluß der traditionellen Medien, Zeitung, Rundfunk und Fernsehen festzumachen versucht. Nach 1989 kamen dazu „Schlüsselwörter der Wende" (siehe etwa den 1994 von Heringer u.a. herausgegebenen Sammelband). Erst seit den 90er Jahren analysiert man Sprachwandeltendenzen unter dem Einfluß von CMC, was einfach dadurch bedingt ist, daß es einige Formen der elektronischen Kommunikation erst seit ein paar Jahren gibt, die Form IRC erst seit 1988. Für Englisch (wenn auch nicht für IRC) gibt es dagegen schon frühere Arbeiten, etwa Baron 1984. 5. Zu einigen Formen elektronischer Kommunikation, vor allem zu IRC und den hier auftretenden besonderen Sprachformen siehe Naumann 1995 und 1997, allgemein zum Thema Neue Medien die Sammelbände von Schmitz (1995), Bollmann (1996) und Bollmann/Heibach (1996). 6. Ong hat schon vor zehn Jahren frühen Formen (im wesentlichen news groups und notice boards) der computervermittelten Kommunikation das Charakteristikum „sekundäre Oralität" (1987, 10) zugesprochen. Wie viele andere, war er allerdings eher an den psychischen und sozialen Aspekten dieser Kommunikationsform interessiert als an den sprachlichen. Auch der Sprachwissenschaftler Wichter geht kurz auf den mündlich/schriftlichen Zwittercharakter dieser neuen Kommunikationsform ein (1991, 65), vgl. dazu Schmitz 1995, 34 f. Für das Englische siehe Wignall 1993. 7. Siehe dazu Naumann (1997) und die Sammlung von Sanderson (1993), die über 600 verschiedene Smileys enthält. 8. Für parallele Erscheinungen im Englischen siehe Carey 1980. 9. Seit den frühen 80er Jahren laufen verschiedene Projekte zur Intemationalisierung computertauglicher Zeicheninventare, siehe dazu Weingarten 1995. 10. Bei der elektronischen Kommunikation IRC kann es vorkommen, daß es zu Verzögerungen bei der Datenübermittlung kommt. Es kann also passieren, daß ein Teilnehmer eine Zeitlang gar nichts auf seinem Schirm hat, und dann werden ihm alle Daten auf einmal geliefert, so daß er überschwemmt wird mit Text, den er gar nicht so schnell lesen kann und der ohnehin nur längst vergangene Sequenzen enthält. Dieses ärgerliche Phänomen heißt in der Computersprache lag, die Formulierung *del lagged gewaltig im obigen Textstück heißt also, daß jemand mit dem Nick del Probleme beim Empfang oder auch beim Senden der übermittelten Daten hat.

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11. Im Februar 1994 brachte der französische „Minister für Kultur und Frankophonie" Jacques Toubon ein Gesetz ein, nach dem alle Wörter aus fremden Sprachen der französischen Lautung, Schreibung und Morphologie angepaßt werden müssen. Zuwiderhandlungen sollten mit Geldstrafen geahndet werden.

Literatur Baron, N.S. (1984), Computer-Mediated Communication as a Force in Language Change. In: Visible Language, Providence, Spring 1984, 118-141. Bollmann, St. (ed.) (1996), Kursbuch Neue Medien. Trends in Wirtschaft und Politik, Wissenschaft und Kultur, Mannheim. Bollmann, St./Heibach, Chr. (eds.) (1996), Kursbuch Internet. Anschlüsse an Wirtschaft und Politik, Wissenschaft und Kunst, Mannheim. Carey, J. (1980), Paralanguage in Computer-Mediated Communication, Menlo Park/Ca. Ömejrkova, S./Danes, F./Havlovä, E. (eds.) (1994), Writing vs Speaking. Language, Text, Discourse, Communication. Proceedings of the Conference held at the Czech Language Institute of the Academy of Science of the Czech Republic, Prague, October 14-16, 1992, Tübingen. Eggers, H. (1973), Deutsche Sprache im 20. Jahrhundert, München. Giesecke, M. (1992), Siimenwandel, Sprachwandel, Kulturwandel. Studien zur Vorgeschichte der Informationsgesellschaft, Frankfurt/M. Glück, H./Sauer, W.W. (1990), Gegenwartsdeutsch, Stuttgart. Glück, H./Sauer, W.W. (1995), Directions of Change in Contemporary German. In: Stevenson, P. (ed.), The German Language and the Real World. Sociolinguistic, Cultural, and Pragmatic Perspectives on Contemporary German, Oxford, 95-116. Heringer, H.J./Samson, G./Kauflmann, M./Bader, W. (eds.) (1994), Tendenzen der deutschen Gegenwartssprache, Tübingen. Höflich, J.R. (1994), Der Computer als „interaktives Massenmedium". Zum Beitrag des Uses and Gratification Approach bei der Untersuchung computer-vermittelter Kommunikation. In: Publizistik 39, 389-408. Krause, J./Hitzenberger, L. (1992), Computer Talk, Hildesheim/New York (Sprache und Computer, Bd. 12). Mittelberg, E.C. (1967), Wortschatz und Syntax der BILD-Zeitung, Marburg. Naumann, B. (1995), Mailbox Chats: Dialogues in Electronic Communication. In: Hundsnurscher, F./Weigand, E. (eds.), Future Perspectives of Dialogue Analysis, Tübingen, 163-184. Naumann, B. (1997), IRCs - schriftliche Sonderformen von Mehrpersonengesprächen. In: Weigand, E. (ed.), Dialogue Analysis: Units, Relations and Strategies beyond the Sentence. Contributions in honour of Sorin Stati's 65th birthday. Tübingen (Beiträge zur Dialogforschung 13), 161-178. Ong, W. (1987), Oralität und Literarität. Die Technologisierung des Wortes, Opladen. Pelz, J. (1993), Computer-vermittelte Kommunikation: Anwendungsformen, mediale Charakteristika, Nutzung im Wissenschaftsbetrieb, Göttingen. Sabourin, C.-F. (1994), Computer Mediated Communication: Computer Conferencing - Electronic Mail Electronic Publishing - Computer Interviewing - Interactive Text Reading - Group Decision - Support Systems - Idea Generation Support Systems - Human Machine Communication - Multi Media Communication - Hypertext - Hypermedia - Linguistic Games, 2 vols., Montreal. Sanderson, D.W. (1993), Smileys, Sebastopol/Ca. Schaefer, U. (1994), Zum Problem der Mündlichkeit. In: Heinzle, J. (ed.), Modernes Mittelalter. Neue Bilder einer populären Epoche, Frankfurt, 357-375. Schmitz, U. (ed.) (1995), Neue Medien. Osnabrücker Beiträge zur Sprachtheorie, Bd. 50. Uhlirovä, L. (1994), Talk at the PC. In: Ömejrkovä, S./Daneä, F./Havlovä, E. (eds.), 275-282. Weigand, E. (1993), Mündlich und schriftlich - ein Verwirrspiel. In: Löfller, H. (ed.), Dialoganalyse IV. Referate der 4.Arbeitstagung, Basel 1992, Tübingen, Bd.l, 137-150. Weingarten, R. (ed.) (1990), Information ohne Kommunikation? Die Loslösung der Sprache vom Sprecher, Frankfurt/M. Weingarten, R. (1995), Das Alphabet in neuen medien. In: Schmitz (ed.), 61-82.

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Wichter, S. (1991), Zur Computerwortschatz-Ausbreitung in die Gemeinsprache. Elemente der vertikalen Sprachgeschichte einer Sache, Frankfurt/M./Bern/New York/Paris. Wignall, D.L. (1993), Computer-Mediated Human Communication: The Identification of Verbal Orality in Written Discourse, Diss. Ann Arbor.

Patrizia Violi Electronic Dialogue Between Orality and Literacy. A Semiotic Approach

1. The technologies of writing 2. The electronic dialogue 3. Immediacy and distance in e-mail communication References

1. The technologies of writing The aim of this paper is to investigate the features that characterise e-mail as a specific textual genre, making it a very unique form of written dialogue. E-mail can be considered as a sub-genre of the more general textual genre of the epistolary exchange. To illustrate both commonalties and differences we have first to consider the general form of any epistolary exchange and then to analyse the specific features that characterise different forms of written dialogue, in particular, in our case, e-mail from regular mail. Any kind of epistolary exchange, from traditional letters on paper to the more modern version of e-mail, can be considered as written dialogue. But what are the differences between oral and written dialogues, besides the use of a different medium? The basic hypothesis that underlies my work is that oral and written forms of communication are two independent and semi-autonomous semiotic systems, endowed with specific functions and not necessarily inter-translatable. In particular, writing is not a simple transcription system of spoken speech, but a real technology in itself. A technology should not be seen only as a technical ,object', an artefact, but as any device that affects and transforms our basic dimensions of experience, primarily the construction of our self and its relationship with others: in other words subjectivity and intersubjectivity. Both subjectivity and intersubjectivity are entangled in complex ways with the systems of technologies we use to express ourselves and to communicate with each other. Turning to the analysis of oral dialogues and their possible written counterparts, for example epistolary exchanges (letters) we can easily see how the technology of writing induces important transformations in the structure of the communicative system by introducing a basic and constitutive distance between the participants in the communicative act. Let us take as the prototypical form of oral dialogue the situation of face-to-face interaction; face-to-face interaction is characterised by the presence of two main features: i. the oral medium, the voice and the auditive channel of communication;

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ii. the sharing, for the participants in the communicative exchange, of the same situation of utterance, which implies the co-presence of the participants, their mutual accessibility (gaze, gesture, body movements and so on), and their being located in the same place and time. When we turn to the analysis of written dialogues, such as letters, we see that indeed the crucial difference is not so much the use of a written medium instead of a spoken one, but the altered situation of utterance. Writing drastically separates the situation of production from that of reception and introduces a basic gap between sender and receiver, between the time and space of writing and the time and space of reading. The two previous features (spoken v.s written and presence vs absence of the situation of utterance) do not have the same relevance from the point of view of their structuring the system of communication, the latter being far more crucial than the former. It is possible therefore to imagine an axis characterized by the presence or absence of a shared situation of utterance, in which both letters and other forms of dialogic exchanges might be situated. The spoken vs written opposition will in various ways move along this axis, individuating different forms of interactions. Letters in general can then be defined as forms of dialogical communication that take place in the absence of the addressee, and are based on a structural spatial and temporal gap. At the discourse level this has important effects on writing strategies, and affects the whole system of deixis in letters, as I have showed elsewhere (Violi 1984, 1985). First of all in letters the sender, together with her spatial and temporal location is textually inscribed. The addressee on the other hand, absent in the communicative situation where letters are situated, is inscribed in the text as a textual figure, for example in the opening („Dear X") or in the pronominal structure („1 am writing to tell you"). Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, both the spatial and temporal locations of addressee can be textually inscribed. The communicative axis sender/addressee is not merely a potential structure in the letter, like in any narrative text, and the temporal distance is not merely the distance implicit in any act of writing, but refers back to a precise extratextual dimension (the time the letter will take to reach its destination). Letters are thus characterised by a double system of spatio-temporal references, which do not coincide: the here and now of the sender and her act of writing and the here and now of the addressee and her act of reading. Let's now turn to e-mail and analyse its specific features.

2. The electronic dialogue If writing is in itself a technology, writing through a computer is, so to say, a double technology, because it adds to the act of writing the uniqueness of the computer medium. Obviously the most striking feature of this second level of technology, when applied to mail, is the strong reduction of the time gap between the sending of a message and its reception. If regular letters are

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characterized by a more or less large delay in time between the sending and the receiving, in email this delay is almost virtually non-existent. However it would be a mistake to think of e-mail simply as a letter that „takes less time". As I argued before, any change in the technology of communication implies a different structuring of the system of communication itself, which in turns always affects the textual structure and the strategies of writing. Technical transformations are never only technical, they change both the forms of our writing and those of our interactions. Time in general is a relevant feature in written forms of dialogue (differently from any other written text) since the extra-textual gap between the writing and the reading becomes a textual element inscribed within the text and affecting the overall structure of the exchange. As I will show in the course of the paper a strong reduction of time gap, as it is the case in e-mail, modifies both the style and structure of discourse, and the form of interaction between the participants, in that it constitutes one of the parameters that define, amongst other things, the turn taking system. From this point of view, in the case of e-mail, the quasi-contemporaneity of the dialogical exchange gives rise to a form of communication which is intermediate between oral and written communication, sharing some features with both forms. This „ambiguous" or „double" nature of e-mail can give rise to different effects, according to which feature becomes most emphasized. If we can range all forms of communication on an idealized continuum axis, constituted by many different parameters, e-mail can be considered not only an intermediate form situated between orality and writing, but also a form of communication that moves along the continuum according to the different possible uses of it, and the different situations in which is used. But let us now consider more closely the different features that characterize e-mail as a system of communication

Previously I indicated two main parameters for a classification of

communicative forms: the kind of medium used, and the co-presence of participants in the situation of utterance. In the case of e-mail the medium is obviously a written one. More complex however is the analysis of the situation of utterance. The two participants are indeed physically separated, they are not perceptually accessible to each other and therefore they do not have access to their reciprocally complex system of bodily phenomenology, a situation which is shared with letters but also, at least in part, with some forms of oral communications such as phone conversations, where only the voice of the speakers is accessible, all the others bodily dimensions being absent. From the point of view of temporal distance, a crucial point for the analysis of e-mail, production time and reception time certainly do not coincide and are still separated. However temporal distance can be, and in certain cases is, almost non-existant. What is important here is not so much the actual time a message takes to reach its receiver, but the way we perceive this temporal distance and the way we react to it, i.e. the way in which we symbolise it. In other words the important point is to understand how the temporal gap constitutive of any dialogical exchange (even face to face interactions happen in temporal sequence) becomes dialogical distance or dialogical proximity. In e-mail both these dimensions play a role; it is precisely such a

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fluctuation between proximity and distance that makes e-mail sometimes closer to a letter, sometimes to a face-to-face dialogue, although it is my impression that the latter standard today tends to become the norm. In my experience as an e-mail user there are two different types of uses of e-mail: the first, which I would call the „traditional" one, often typical of novice users, uses e-mail more like a traditional letter; the second, the „innovative" one, is closer to a quasioral exchange. From the technical point of view e-mail allows both uses, but I will concentrate more on the second, since it is certainly the most interesting case. Focusing on this more peculiar use of e-mail, we can make some interesting comparisons with regular letters. If regular letters are always characterised by a double gap, both in time and space, in e-mail only the spatial distance is preserved, while temporal distance is reduced to virtually zero time. Although this is not always the case, and messages can obviously take longer, the exchange of two messages in the e-mail environment can be almost immediate, and this is often the case when the two people are both using the system at the same time. Again, what is relevant is not if this is always the case, and what is the real time gap, but the fact that e-mail seems to induce the idea of a possible contemporaneity. Therefore, from the temporal point of view, a message and its answer belong to the same „temporal unit".This is true even if, in real time, a gap still occurs between the first message and the second one. Indeed what I call a temporal unit is not defined by the extratextual time dimension, but by the way time is inscribed within the text. From this point of view, the „now" of the sender is assumed to be the same as the „now" of the addressee; in other terms the two times of utterance are taken as coinciding. Now such a situation is much closer to oral conversations than it is to written letters. Co-presence in time is constitutive of oral dialogue, while its absence is not only constitutive of letters, but also textually inscribed in them as a writing strategy. An interesting consequence of e-mail being constituted as a temporal unit is that the unit of analysis cannot be a single message isolated from the sequence, nor the all messages written by one sender, but has to be an exchange of at minimum one message and its answer from the addressee. This is not the case for regular letters, where you can, at least to a certain extent, consider only the sequence of the letters of one person: the epistolary of Kafka to Milena is the collection of the letters Kafka wrote to his fiancée. Now the same situation would be impossible in e-mail not because e-mail is a less sexist medium, but because the sequence of the texts of one single participant would probably be almost incomprehensible. Indeed one feature that strongly characterizes e-mail exchanges is the high frequency of anaphorical references among messages of different participants, as it is often the case in oral conversation. The analogy with oral dialogue is even stronger in the case, very often occurring today, of the reproduction of the other person's message within your own reply. The reason for such a reproduction is obviously the need to make available the conversational background and its topic. Interestingly enough this reproduction is often done by quoting single lines or paragraphs of the other message, and writing a few lines in reply after the quote. In this way the e-mail message becomes a very close simulation, through a written medium, of an oral interaction, with its conversational turns. This is an interesting example of how a technological possibility made available by the medium produces

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a new textual structure and in some ways, a new discourse. The technicalities of the system allow and at the same time force e-mail to become like an oral dialogue. This is probably why e-mail exhibits, in relation to regular mail, a stronger need for a fast reply. E-mail etiquette indeed requires a short interval, of approximately, in my experience as an Italian user, one day, which is more or less the same time-interval we expect for a return phone call when we leave a message on an answering machine. It is interesting to analyse the kinds of implicature that arise when such an interval is not respected, because they show important differences in relation to both conversation and letters. Indeed, when in face to face conversation we don't receive a reply and a silence follows our turn the effects are devastating and the implicatures very strong („he doesn't want to talk to me"). In e-mail this is not the case because we can always have doubts about the degree of intentionality of the absent answer and therefore the implicature is not necessarily that there is a clear refusal to communicate on the part of the other. In e-mail there is indeed always the possibility of a technical failure, as there was in the „old days" for the postal service, and this is partly the reason we expect a prompt reply: since an e-mail exchange is considered part of the same temporal unit, if this doesn't happen then a reasonable inference is that the message got lost. When we don't receive a reply the implicatures of communicative refusal are weaker than in a conversation (because the possibility of a technical failure is always possible), but still stronger than in a letter, especially nowadays when some systems allow the sender to know whether the message we sent has been received or not. We could say that the different expected time interval, for regular letters and e-mail respectively, affects the „dialogical rhythm" of the exchange, in regular letters the rhythm of the exchange is slow and less interactive, while e-mail is faster and much more interactive, and somehow closer to a conversation. As a consequence of this, the illocutionary force of e-mail is stronger than that of a letter. By the „illocutionary force" of any epistolary exchange I do not mean the type or types of illocutionary act each letter can produce, but in general the fact that each letter, beside its specific content, signifies its own communicative function. If this is a very general feature of any epistolary text, in e-mail it acquires a peculiar strength, due to its sharing something with an oral interaction. An e-mail message, like an opening in a conversational sequence, seems to require an answer in a even stronger way than a letter does, as e-mail etiquette shows, and technicality allows, with the special key for,reply' that most systems have. To sum up, we have seen how the assumption of contemporaneity in time between that of the sender and that of the receiver makes e-mail occupy an unstable intermediate status between oral and written forms of communication. The position of e-mail in this continuum of communicative forms is indeed not fixed and can shift more toward oral or toward written communication, depending obviously also on to whom are we writing. This intermediate status is also reflected in the textual structure of e-mail and its forms of writing, both in terms of style and of information distribution.

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268 3.

Immediacy and distance in e-mail communication

E-mail style is in general very close to spoken language and can be characterized as higly informal: abbreviations and elliptical forms are very common, as well as short sentences, which are generally avoided in regular letters. Paratactic forms are predominant over hypotactic ones, and complex subordinate clauses are very rare. Moreover, e-mail writing is often characterized by a certain „sloppiness" in the correctness of the spelling and the precision of typing which goes together, on the reader's side, with a very high degree of tolerance for spelling and typing errors. What would be unacceptable in a regular typed letter, does not require correction in the e-mail format, increasing the informal nature of its style. This is an interesting feature, in that it shows quite well how technical constraints can affect the form of writing, inducing a new stylistic standard. A certain closeness to orality of communication by e-mail can also be seen in the structure of information distribution. Since the two minimal turns of a dialogical exchange take place in the same virtual temporal unit (or better it is assumed that they do), there is very little need for repetition of background information, which is similar to what happens in a real conversation. A lot is taken for granted, since we could expect the information to still be available in the short term memory of the receiver. When this is not the case, and the temporal gap extends over a certain length of time, particular strategies are used: either the quoting within one message of the other person's message, as I have already pointed out, or an explicit reference to it („You might not remember what you asked me, it was ...."). When the usual fast dialogical rhythm of the exchange is maintained, we often have a high level of implicit background content being taken for granted and the communication often follows what could be defined a „restricted code" in Bernstein's sense. The features I have so far briefly described contribute to build up the effect of immediacy that strongly characterises the dialogic exchange through e-mail. Such an effect emphasises, once again, the similarities of this medium with conversation, and illuminates its partially orally functioning structure. However, important differences from real oral interaction persist and should not be downplayed. Let us for example consider turn-taking. In e-mail we are free to take our turn whenever we like. Certainly there are more or less standard expectations about answering time, as I have argued before, nevertheless within that time interval we don't have any prescriptive turn to respect, as is the case in face to face interaction, where turn taking is strongly regulated. This allows considerable freedom, especially when multi-user conversations are going on. In this case the difference from oral interactions becomes more striking, since everybody can enter the interaction without having to negotiate their turn, and somehow independently from other participants' interventions. This means that the usual norms regulating conversations among many speakers are no longer operative, or at least not

in the same way they do in real

conversations, while it is not always so clear what these new norms should be. Such a situation

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might sometimes produce disruptive effects in the overall communication picture,- as we will see in a minute. In general we could say that the distance existing in e-mail among participants and the nonaccessibility to perception of each others' bodily phenomenology mark a strong and deep difference with face-to-face oral situations. In particular it allows participants to gain the floor independently from one other, without seeing or being seen. In this way e-mail can emancipate us from direct interaction, which sometimes turns out to be a very convenient way of communicating (in the same vein as sometimes leaving a message on an answering machine is preferable to finding the other in person). Because of the features I just mentioned, e-mail can also produce quite an interesting effect, opposite to the immediacy of orality, which we could call a „distancing effect". Curiously enough, this generally happens when e-mail is used in environments where there is not only no temporal gap, but also no spatial distance, the users being in the same physical or geographical space. I am thinking of the more and more frequent case of e-mail being used for communication among researchers or employees working in the same physical place, often in offices no more distant than a few meters from each other. What is the function of the medium in such cases? And why to use the electronic medium at all instead of a face to face interaction, when this would be not only possible, but even simpler? The answer cannot be simply to save time or to avoid the physical displacement to another office. Recently I had occasion to read a very interesting report of one such multi-speaker conversation among several users in a research centre, where all the e-mail messages were transcribed over a certain period of time. Unfortunately the material is confidential and cannot be quoted here, but the main topic was a request from one of the researchers to the manager of a given facility, and the time-delay in getting a reply. In a short time many other researchers became involved in the interaction, as well as the whole hierarchy of management. The explosion of misunderstandings and cross-communications among all the participants was so terrible that at a certain point the top management had to formally ask

everybody to stop using e-mail to

discuss the matter. Which kind of conclusion can we draw from such a story? Certainly the use of the medium made possible, and to a certain extent induced, a system of interpersonal relationships which was highly fragmented. It is reasonable to assume that a single face-to-face meeting of all the participants in question could have helped in solving the problem much more effectively than the flow of electronic communication. Even if e-mail messages can be sent to several users at the same time, they remain a highly individualistic' system of communication, which does not facilitate group communication, but on the contrary induces a fragmentation of the dialogue into one-to-one or one-to-all kind of exchanges, more centred on the sender than on the interaction. Moreover the almost explosive effects of this ,unhealthy' communication are, at least in part, functions of technical aspects of the medium. Being so close to the immediacy of oral communication

e-mail often induces us to write „as we speak" more than we would do in a

regular letter, but then everything is recorded and we have access to all the previous exchanges, a

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possibility completely out of reach in a real oral dialogue. Although e-mail can share some features with an oral dialogue, it differs drastically from in it in relation to remembering. Orality allows forgetting, while e-mail can rely on an almost superhuman memory. This makes possible an endless process of re-reading and reinterpretation which often turns out incredibly disturbing, as in the case I referred to before. This is just one example of the ways in which a technological transformation can affect the shaping of interpersonal communication

and intersubjectivity. But consider another aspect of

subjectivity, more precisely the way in which we represent ourselves within a text. The e-mail writing process is completely dematerialised: even the signature, the last sign of a specific and unique writer, disappears, substituted by the immateriality of an e-mail address included by default in any message. All body traces are cancelled; subjectivity can emancipate itself from any bodily phenomenology, as well as the access to the other person's bodily phenomenology being prevented. The hiding of any traces of physical presence allows a play on sexual identity very common in electronic communication between unknown people. We could say that e-mail dialogue allows a split between bodily phenomenology and self-representation which is highly peculiar of the medium. On the basis of these observations we can try to make some general remarks on the transformations induced by the specific technology of e-mail and the ways it affects our forms of communicating. As I tried to show, electronic dialogue shapes our interactions in many ways, imposing on them some specific features: the fragmentation of our dialogues, the distance among participants, the dematerialisation of our writing, together with the construction of an effect of contemporaneity in the exchange. Independently of any value judgements we might assign to these features (which could be quite different according to the parameters we set for our evaluation), we should always remember that these features directly relate to the technology itself and cannot be separated from it. Far from being neutral, technology always shapes in complex ways our experience of the world, our relationships, our own subjectivity, as I tried to show in the very restricted and local case of e-mail.

References Violi, P. (1984), Letter as Written Interaction. In: D'Urso V./Leonardi P. (eds.), Discourse Analysis and Natural Rhetorics, Padova: Clueb, 213-220. Violi, P. (1985), Letters. In: Van Dijk T. (ed ), Discourse and Literature, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 149-167.

Patrick John Coppock A Sociosemiotic Approach to Processes of Textual and Interaction Norm Change in Distributed Virtual Environments

1. Introduction 2. Preamble 3. Making meaning out of „content" 4. Meaning-making in distributed virtual environments 5. The socio-semiotics of human-computer interactions 6. Some subjective experiences of human-computer interaction 7. Investigating the dynamics of changing norm systems in distributed virtual enviroments 8. Closing Notes References

1. Introduction The evolution of the Internet as a „global information superhighway" is opening up for new forms of communication, cooperation and dialogue in, and across all areas of science, with distributed multimedia and hypermedia technology rapidly increasing the range of semiotic systems that may be used to represent and interpret the objects of scientific investigation, and playing an increasingly important role in the instantiation and construal of scientific knowledge in general. This seems to challenge existing textual and cooperational norm systems and doxas across all fields of science and education. In this paper a sociosemiotic, systemic-functional approach to investigating processes of normative change in distributed virtual environments is advocated. Distributed virtual environments are considered as dynamic open systems, where the construal and instantiation of meaning is actualised in the interplay between the evolution and ontogenesis of mediating technological systems, and of the textual and interactional norm systems of those who interact within, and contribute to the development of, these kinds of virtual environments.

2. Preamble A few weeks ago I was in Rome where I attended an information day organised by the European Commission Directorate General XIII1 on the future of multimedia technology in Europe. The main focus of discussion there was on what the organisers termed the „content" of developing

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new multimedia products. As they framed this particular issue in the invitational letter sent out to us in advance: Content, in all forms, is the vital raw material of the information society. Without abundant, high-quality content, the true benefits of the multimedia revolution will not be realised; the creation of the information highways will be of limited value.

Elsewhere in this letter „content" was defined in the following way:

Content is: Data, text, sounds and images which are reproduced in analogue or digital formats and carried by means of a variety of carriers including paper, microfilm and magnetic or optical storage.

Now, it seems at first glance difficult to disagree with the basic contention above that what is most important in relation to the future development of multimedia products for the „Information Superhighway" is high quality content, but in this paper I would like to problematize this concept of „content" from a systemic functional perspective, and examine it in relation to some other issues related to an on-going investigation into how textual and interactional norm systems operative in scientific communication and cooperation change, as the everyday work of science moves more and more into digitally generated distributed virtual environments.

3. Making meaning out of „content" First of all I would like to focus on the distinction between „content", defined in more or less purely technical and information theoretical terms as above, and „meaning". Considered from a cultural and social semiotic perspective, there is a great deal of difference between „content" conceptualised as information types and „content" conceptualised in terms of the social and cultural meanings that this information takes part in creating. While information (in Shannon and Weave's2 information theoretical terms) is something that may (perhaps must) be neatly coded in discrete units in order to be transmitted over a computer network, meaning is more than pure information flow. Meaning is to begin with interactional (cf. Putnam 1975; Edelman 1989, 1992; Coppock 1995), and since it is socioculturally instantiated and construed, it changes, develops and evolves continually as a result of human beings' intersubjective interactions with one another and their material interactions with the environment. Human language and culture may be considered as information exchanging and interpreting dynamic open systems (cf. Halliday 1987; Lemke 1993); that is, systems which persist only through being in a state of constant change through their ongoing dialogical exchanges of information with other interpreting systems constituting their environment. Any given system's interactions with its environment create internal disorder, and this is exported to the surrounding environment, increasing its entropy. This causes a renewal of the exporting system, which in becoming something more than it was before, cannot return to its previous state. An open system of this kind is metastable since the

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only reason it exists at all is because it is open, and this openness means that its basic state of being is necessarily one of constant becoming (cf. Lemke 1993). Meaning, like the information which is interpreted intersubjectively in order to create it, is grounded within, and thus dependent on for its creation, a context of culture; and it constantly evolves and changes while the amount of information produced, stored, exchanged and interpreted merely grows in volume. Information cannot in itself constitute meaning. It is when information is exchanged and interpreted by people who need to actually do something with this information that social and cultural meanings arise. Seen from a systemic-functional perspective, the process of human meaning-making is then a culturally and socially grounded semiotic, involving the production, exchange and interpretation of information as well as material goods and services. As Halliday (1994) points out. „Meaning (acting semiotically) develops along with doing (acting materially) as interdependent modes of human behaviour, and both depend on interaction with the physical and social environment".

4. Meaning-making in distributed virtual environments Gregory Bateson (1972) once defined information as „a difference that makes a difference". A systemic functional semiotics, however, is not only interested in structural relationships between pieces of information (which might also be called differences) that make a difference for someone or something, but the who or what it is that these differences actually make a „difference" for the someone or something who interprets the difference as a sign of something else, how or why they actually make this difference, and even more importantly, what the difference that is made actually consists of, qualitatively and quantitatively. The focus is on the dynamics of the wider „effects" of sign exchanges on interpreting systems like societies and cultures, and with the actual consequences of these interpretational effects in terms of meaning. The concern is with how information or „difference" becomes dynamically transformed, or dialogically translated, and instantiated and construed by these translation processes as changing social and cultural meanings. Charles Sanders Peirce, one of the fathers of modern semiotics, defined the sign as: something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity. It addresses somebody, that is creates in the mind of that person an equivalent sign, or perhaps a more developed sign. That sign which it creates I call the interpretant of the first sign. The sign stands for something, its object. It stands for that object, not in all respects, but in reference to a sort of idea. [CP 2.228]

Meaning conceived at this extremely general level is the „reference to a sort of idea" that some kind of information - let us call it a sign - might come to stand for in respect to some object or other in the mind of someone or something who perceives that sign. Broadly speaking, these „references to sorts of ideas" stand for the full range of potential general meanings that might

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come to be realized by some (community of) interpreter's) in some particular context over time, by signs which stand in some relation or other to some object of investigation. Distributed multi- and hypermedia technologies can be considered as both socio-cultural artefacts and mentefacts,3 Artefacts are objects produced by cultures, societies, social groups and individuals in order to make it simpler for them to perform certain types of tasks, communicative or not, deemed useful to further the basic needs of the community. Information disseminated by means of communication technology combines through representational and interpretational processes into complex semiotic systems which become instantiated and construed intersubjectively as cultural meanings by individuals, groups and cultures as they use the technology. When artefacts like computers are used as a medium for the exchange and interpretation of information and take part in the actualization of new kinds of social and cultural meanings, they act in force of this mediating role on the dynamics of the cultural and social semiotic, setting various sets of parameters that reduce, elaborate or augment the flow of information in different ways. This mediation process affects how people who use these artefacts perceive, communicate, think, work and cooperate with one another. Technologies may also be considered as mentefacts, as carriers of social and cultural meanings, since they are interpreted as signs and given symbolic meanings by the cultures, societies and people who use them as they do so and reflect upon their functions in meaningmaking processes. They are also dynamic cultural objects, since they change and evolve themselves as they incorporate into, and interact with, the socio-cultural contexts and practices that they are evolving out of. These interpretative processes work also at the material level of culture, since the practices that evolve around technologies and the ways in which they are understood, act upon them and gradually change them structurally, making them more functional. In this way technologies become integrated both as artefacts and mentefacts into everyday life as they develop over time and take on various kinds of forms, functional roles, and symbolic meanings for those who use them. When these processes of material and symbolic integration no longer are seen to function adequately for some reason or other, or the technological artefact outlives its perceived material functionality, it either becomes obsolete and disappears, or assumes a purely symbolic functional role as a mentefact, for instance as a museum object.

5. The socio-semiotics of human-computer interactions Some semioticians (see for instance Andersen 1990) have described the process of human communication with a computer via its user-interface as an interpretational process (semiosis), which is most certainly true on the part of the human user. A computer, however, is not really capable of producing the same kind of complex interpretations of signs into meanings that human beings routinely do in everyday life. The range of possible interpretants which a computer can generate and develop in response to any given sets of information with which it is presented is limited to those interpretative reactions that have been pre-coded into the computer system and

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the software algorithms that control it by human programmers in advance. A computer cannot make creative inferences. Human-computer communication is rather different for lay users in relation to technologically competent users; a computer programmer, or systems developer will generally be able to communicate with and understand his or her computer at other levels of understanding than those of lay-users as they use it to do everyday tasks like writing or communicating. In the case of the engineer or programmer his or her interactions with the computer will generally develop a deeper level of understanding of the present potential and limitations of the system, and possibly lead to the innovation of new developments in the longer term. But computers, and the software that runs on them, are still extremely limited and simplistic in relation to the complex task of interpreting and understanding information in any meaningful way. They cannot establish intersubjective relationships with those who use them, or with other computers, and cannot make meaning in the human sense of the term. Recent work with neural networks, evolutionary programming, case-based abductive reasoning systems and „intelligent agents" in the field of artificial intelligence (see eg. Lund/Mayoh 1995, Michaelowicz 1995, Skowron 1995, Meyer/Guessoum 1993; Hobbs et al. 1990, Malheiro/Oliveira 1995, Josephson/Josephson 1994) claims that computer modelling systems can be developed that, in elementary ways at least, will be able to learn from their own dialogical interactions, not only with human beings, but also with their own environment, and modify themselves accordingly to perform more specialised and functional tasks and operations which will come to resemble human interpretational and reasoning processes more and more over time. There is still, however, an enormous qualitative gap between artificial modelling systems of this kind and the semiotic complexities of human meaning-making in a context of culture, and it is difficult to see how this semiotic abyss might ever really be completely closed. Perhaps even more importantly, it is unclear what the possible consequences of this might be for us as human beings if it actually was. I have discussed these kinds of issues in some more detail elsewhere (cf. Coppock 1995), so I will leave it at this for now and go on to discuss the notions of interaction and interactivity in more depth.

6. Some subjective experiences of human-computer interaction It has often been pointed out that a defining (and innovative) characteristic of hyper- and multimedia technologies is that they are „interactive", since living people can interact with inanimate technology and make it perform tasks like bringing on to the user-interface an image, animation sequence, or video sequence that illustrates or expands some aspect of the particular hypermedia text they are browsing at the time. Human-computer interaction of this kind differs as discussed here previously - considerably from the intersubjective interaction involved in cultural meaning making processes discussed above. Handling virtual objects while playing computer- or video-games, for instance, or „surfing" the Internet using a Web browser, may

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create learning effects with regard to using the technology, and perhaps give some insight into its possible potentials and limitations. Investigations of these kinds of practices can of course be of interest, but they are essentially related to individual meaning-making processes and cannot, in my view, provide deeper insights into the mediating and norm-constitutive role of the technology at the level of culture. Now, as people are actually beginning to use these communication technologies on a reasonably large scale to communicate and cooperate - using it as an everyday medium for everyday life and work and forming virtual communities in the process - then it becomes of more interest to investigate how social and cultural norm systems are changing over time in relation to these kinds of practices. I shall illustrate briefly below how subtle changes in individual norm systems may be related in a simple way to some wider social and cultural framework by reference to some of me and my colleagues changing practices over time in relation to some recent changes in the functionality of the communication technologies we use. When we first started using the Internet for communication and research purposes at our department here at the university around 1990, the tools and services available to us for communication were relatively limited. The first e-mail account we were given involved a simple on-line text editor run on a mainframe computer, which did not allow for easy revision and editing of messages, while the off-line editor we now have makes this whole process much easier. This functional change at the material level can looked at subjectively in several ways. One advantage is that it is no longer necessary for us to stay logged on to the mainframe computer for hours in order to read and write replies to messages we receive; there is now more choice of time and place to do this. This log-on time aspect is something that has become increasingly important for me personally in recent years, since I now quite often use a telephone and modem connection from home, which means I have to pay for every minute that I am logged into the university computer system. The fact that all the members of our interdepartmental writing research team now in principle can choose to work at, or from, home whenever we wish has slowly begun to change many of our basic working and living habits, and indirectly, also our interpersonal relationships as friends and colleagues, often with our places of work in different places. In principle, we can always get in touch with one another, as long as we have access our respective e-mail accounts from where we are. Since I now spend quite a lot of time in two different countries, Norway and Italy, and other colleagues and friends move a lot too, this potential is very important for our group as a scientific community to maintain some degree of continuity in our personal and working relationships, while being free to move around between our respective environments. For many of us, however, this is still not a potential that is being fully realised, and in order to understand this may be, it is necessary to understand that there is a considerable degree of what we might call socio-cultural intertia, which means that although the potential for more continuity in relationships may be present, it takes considerable time to realise this potential. To exemplify briefly: something that we are still working hard to understand is just how much this particular type of communication might mean to us in terms of personal and professional development. There still seems to be a tendency to think of our use of the computer as a medium for

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communication rather than a „writing tool" to write articles and papers, as something that belongs „outside" of our real work as researchers and academics, and that it in some way or other detracts from our total working time at the office, while in fact, if one sits down and thinks about it, the wide range of personal and professional relationships that actually are being initiated, developed and maintained through the wide range of writing practices that may be carried out within virtual environments like e-mail are becoming an increasingly important part of our private and professional lives. In fact, the borderlines between our professional and private lives are beginning to merge even more because we now have access to this means of cooperation and communication. The countless discussions and controversies we can follow and take part in through joining e-mail discussion groups mean it is possible to intermingle and interact with some of the most engaged and knowledgeable people in the world in the various areas of science that we are interested in. This kind of participation can enrich and expand our professional and social life-worlds far beyond the walls of our offices, department and university, and bring „back" with us many of these new ideas and insights into our everyday as colleagues and friends at our department. For many, though, the most fundamental problem is how to sort out what is functional and useful for us from what is not. Another is when one feels, as often can be the case, that the technology does not function „invisibly" in the background, but rather gets in the way of our potential meaning-making activities. There has been an almost exponential growth in the number of tools for scientific writing and publication in virtual environments: for instance for composing HTML pages for publication on World Wide Web. These allow the inclusion of images, sound and video sequences, graphics, animations etc.. The general range of semiotic systems and codes that we may consider using to convey a message for our peers and others is greatly increased. The potential audience for the scientific writing we do is now much wider than even the national and international specialists in our own fields. This can be both problematic and advantageous on several levels. An advantage because the increased functionality of the technology means that our creative and expressive potential is increased; a problem because it involves even more choices and necessary skills in order to do it well. On another level, the awareness that the potential audience for what we write can be huge means that we are constantly forced to make choices with regard to who we are actually adressing our messages to. There are many other kinds of other considerations too, such as which kinds of message structures and writing strategies are best suited for conveying certain kinds of messages in virtual environments of this kind. There is not time or space here to examine all the above issues in any depth, so we will move on to discuss changing systems of norms in virtual environments in a more general way, with reference to a current research program.

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7. Investigating the dynamics of changing norm systems in distributed virtual environments The object of investigation for the research program TextNorm>CoDiVE 4 is textual and interactional norm-system constitution and change in groups of novice writers cooperating in distributed virtual environments. More specifically, our research is focused on how novice scientifc writers' textual and interactional norms change when they begin to use distributed virtual environments for a broad range of practices categorised loosely as scientific writing. Distributed virtual environments are understood as forms of digital communication technology that facilitate communication and cooperation at a distance by means of „writing". Writing here is used in a very broad sense to characterise all forms of text creation and communication practices made possible by the particular technologies that we are using. The term „distributed" implies that participants in the writing process gain access to virtual resources - i.e. digital resources used in the writing process that do not reside physically where the writing is actually being carried out, but which are retrieved or activated from where they are stored by participants at their computer screens, whenever and wherever they are needed. A distributed virtual environment of this kind is seen as a dynamic open system, in the sense referred to previously: a technologically mediated socioculturel environment, for communication and cooperation that evolves and develops as participants interact (in real time or not) while not being physically proximate in space. Our research is focused at the moment not only on e-mail as a virtual environment, but on distributed systems which facilitate written communication more or less in real time between groups of participants in multi-user object-oriented virtual environments (MOO's). The MOO environment that we are using at present has a World Wide Web „Gateway", where a window opens into the virtual environment from a Web browser. The environment facilitates simultaneous communication in writing with others in the virtual environment, and the creation and use of virtual objects like texts, hypertext links to other World Wide Web, film projectors that project slides into the virtual environment, and to work together using these virtual objects with other people logged on simultaneously. One of the unique aspects of virtual environments of this kind is that participants can design and alter the virtual environment that they interact in while they are there. They write, discuss and alter textual descriptions of spaces and rooms, and create virtual objects with specific functions to furnish these rooms, and try these environments out together with other people for a wide range of activities. Everything that goes on in the virtual environment can be recorded and these texts used as a basis for documenting, interpreting and evaluating what has actually happened. This adds a strong dimension of social action and cooperation to participation in the virtual environment which is qualitatively different from individual „Websurfing". Rather than being merely „tourists" or „users" who „interact" with ready-made products that others have designed, participants become members of a developing virtual community where they take part in on-going design and development activities that influence the further development and growth of the virtual environment. They are participant-

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observers who can investigate and interpret changes in their own, and other participantobservers', textual and interactional norm systems as they are going on. We still know very little at present about how using distributed virtual environments of this kind for enacting and construing scientific communication and cooperation affects the development of textual and interactional norm-systems of those taking part. We are especially interested in understanding and describing how more general systems of interactional and textual norms that traditionally have been associated with the everyday business of doing scientific writing will change due to the increasing use of virtual environments for scientific writing and publication, and conversely, how these changing norm systems change participants' perceptions of the environments that they are using to perform these activities. Scientific writing and publication norms will be influenced by the possibility of incorporating a wider range of semiotic systems such as images, sounds and video into „texts", and probably more importantly, by the potential for more continuous forms of interaction and cooperation between authors, referees, publishers and readers of scientific texts, where co-developing texts and even the contexts for these texts, rather than finished products like books and academic journals, are the starting point for these practices. The study presented briefly above, which is methodologically ethnographically oriented, takes the phenomenological experiences of participant-observers to be valid data, aims to take novice scientific writers into the virtual environment as participant-observers who are embracing, learning and trying out these environments for exploratory forms of scientific writing and communication, while they at the same time reflect upon, and report for each other, how it is affecting the ways in which they do these activities, and the meanings they are attributing to working together in this way.

8. Closing If the aim of developing the Information Superhighway is seen as merely facilitating a relatively small number of „content producers" in pouring ever increasing amounts of „content" into people's everyday lives without questioning the meaningfulness and value of this activity for us as individuals, societies and cultures, then I feel we are somehow missing the point. In focusing on content as essentially information which is moving from producer to consumer, we would seem to be losing sight of what might be the most important potential of the kinds of distributed virtual environments mentioned above: their potential as dynamic open systems for intersubjective cooperation and meaning-making, where active and engaged participants have the opportunity to take part in developing the environment they work in from the „inside". Distributed virtual environments must surely represent a new and interesting context for professional conversational and dialogue analysts to study communication processes in. They may also pose interesting challenges to existing norm systems within this particular of theoretical and methodological framework too, since methods and analyses used to study how systems of communicative and

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cooperative norms change over time will not only need to take account of the way in which people communicate with one another, but also of how participation in these cooperative activities changes the very nature of the social and material contexts in which these activities take place.

Notes 1. EU's DG XII is responsible for coordinating and intitiating work on telecommunications, information marketing and exploitation of research, the information industry and market and language processing in the EU. 2. See Shannon, C./Weaver, W. 1949. 3. SeePosner (1989) for a discussion of the terms artefact and mentefact. 4. See Coppock (in preparation) for a description of the design and goals of this program.

References Andersen, P. B. (1990), A Theory of Computer Semiotics: Semiotic Approaches to Construction and Assessment of Computer Systems. Cambridge University Press. Bateson, G. (1972), Steps to an Ecology of Mind, San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Company. Coppock, P. J. (1995), A Semiotic Perspective on the Development of Artificial Intelligence. In: Aamodt, A./ Komorowski, J. (eds.), SCAI 95. Fifth Scandinavian Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Amsterdam/Oxford/Washington DC, Tokyo: IOS Press, 378-385. Coppock, P.J. (in press), (a). Ascribing Continuity to the Diachronicity of Textual Norms in Virtual Environments. Paper presented at the Nordic Association of Semiotic Studies Research Congress, The Power of Signs, held in Trondheim, October 21-23, 1994. To appear in a special number of Semio Nordica (ed. Sonesson, G.). Coppock, P.J. (in press), (b). The Semiotics of a Phenomenological Research Paradigm for Investigating the Evolution and Ontogenesis of Cultural Norm Systems in Distributed Virtual Environments. Paper presented at the international conference The Semiotics of the Media, organised in Kassel, Germany 19-23 March, 1995 by the International Association of Semiotic Studies. To appear in Semiotica (ed. T. Sebeok). Coppock, P.J. (in preparation), TextNorm>CoDiVE: Changing Textual and Interactional Norms through Cooperation in Distributed Virtual Environments. A Field Study of the Development of Qualifying Text- and Communication Norm-systems in Distributed Multi-user Text Worlds. First Field Report, December 1995. Trondheim, Norway: The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Arts, Department of Applied Linguistics. Eco, U. (1979), A Theory of Semiotics, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Eco, U. (1984), Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language, London: Macmillan. Edelman, G. M. (1989), The Remembered Present: A Biological Theory of Consciousness. New York: Basic Books. Edelman, G. M. (1992), Bright Air, Brilliant Fire. On the Matter of the Mind. New York: Basic Books. Halliday, M..A.K. (1987), Language and the Order of Nature. In: Fabb, N. et al. (eds.), The Linguistics of Writing, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987, chapter 9. Halliday, M.A.K. (1994), On Language in Relation to the Evolution of Human Consciousness. Paper for Nobel Symposium 92 The relation between Language and Mind, Stockholm, 8-12 August 1994. Hobbs, J./Stickel, M./Appelt, D./Martin, P. (1990), Inteipretation as Abduction. Technical Note 499, December 1990. SRI International Artificial Intelligence Center, Computing and Engineering Sciences Division.

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Josephson, J. RVJosephson, S. (1994), Abductive Inference. Computation, Philosophy, Technology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lemke, J. L. (1993), Discourse, Dynamics and Social Change. In: Cultural Dynamics 6.1. (1993), Leiden: E. J. Brill, 243-275. Lund/Mayoh (1995), Specialization in Populations of Artificial Neural Networks. In: Aamodt, A./Komorowski, J. (eds.), SCAI 95. Fifth Scandinavian Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Amsterdam/Oxford/Washington DC - Tokyo: IOS Press, 133-144. Malheiro/Oliveira (1995), Improving Assumption Based Distributed Belief Revision. In: Aamodt, A./ Komorowski, J. (eds.), SCAI 95. Fifth Scandinavian Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Amsterdam/ Oxford/Washington DC/Tokyo: IOS Press, 41-50. Meyer, RVGuessoum, A. (1993), Abduction and Conceptual Filtering for Pragmatic Reasoning Systems. In: Jokinen, K. (ed.), Proceedings of the XlVth Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics and the Vllth Conference of Nordic and General Linguistics, August 16-21, 1993, Special Session on Pragmatics in Dialogue Management. Gothenburg Papers in Theoretical Linguistics 71, Gothenburg: University of Gothenburg, 157174. Michaelowicz (1995), Evolutionary Programming: An Overview. In: Aamodt, A./Komorowski, J. (eds ), SCAI 95. Fifth Scandinavian Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Amsterdam/Oxford/Washington DC/Tokyo: IOS Press, 322-337. Noth, W. (1990), A Handbook of Semiotics. Bloomington/Indianopolis: Indiana University Press. Peirce, Ch. S. Collected Papers. Vol. V-VI. (1960), Hartshorne, Ch./Weiss, P. (eds.), Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Posner, R. (1989), What is Culture? Toward a Semiotic Explication of Anthropological Concepts. In: Koch, W. A. (ed.), The Nature of Culture, Brochmeyer: Bochum, 240-295. Putnam, H. (1975), Mind, Language and Reality (Philosophical Papers II). Cambridge University Press. Shannon, C./Weaver, W. (1949), The Mathematical Theory of Communication, Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Skowron (1995), Synthesis of Adaptive Decision Systems from Experimental Data. In: Aamodt, A./Komorowski, J. (eds.), SCAI 95. Fifth Scandinavian Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Amsterdam/Oxford/Washington DC - Tokyo: IOS Press, 220-238.

Gabriella Airenti Dialogue in a Developmental Perspective

1. Introduction 2. The development of pragmatic abilities 3. A cognitive theory of communication 4. Theory of communication and development 5. Conclusions References Acknowledgements

1.

Introduction

Traditionally the links between pragmatics and developmental psychology have been rather tenuous. Linguists even when they recognize the importance of modelling language use in terms of the underlying cognitive structures ignore the process of acquisition (see for instance Sperber/Wilson 1981). Developmental psychologists interested in language acquisition have used pragmatic concepts, like speech acts, without criticizing them, thus renouncing to have an impact on pragmatic studies (see for instance Bruner 1975). It is a well known fact that pragmatics has been given many definitions and that none of them has been retained as the most acceptable one by at least the majority of the researchers in the field (cf. Levinson 1983). Difficulties in definition are paralleled by difficulties in establishing the very aims of a pragmatic theory. This gives to pragmatics its characteristic and blamed confusion of intents. The thesis I shall maintain in this paper is that a way to open new perspectives can be to use developmental data to corroborate theoretical findings. The acquisition of linguistic communication is a very complex process which starts at birth and stabilizes only after several years. In this long time span some points can be individuated where specific phenomena appear. This discontinuity in acquisition may shed light on the different components of the pragmatic ability. In preceding work (cf. Airenti/Bara/Colombetti 1993a, b) my colleagues and I have singled out some structures which we consider as the fundamental mind features allowing humans to communicate. Here I shall confront this theory with some developmental data trying to clarify the different nature of the traditional components of pragmatics.

2.

The development of pragmatic abilities

If we analyze the development of pragmatic abilities we recognize a rather long path where some fundamental steps can be identified. There is no agreement among scholars of different schools

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about the meaning which has to be attributed to the different phases, but the main phenomena are acknowledged by everybody. To present a very simplified description of these facts we can consider three phases. A first phase starts at the very moment when the infant is born and can be called the phase of the first interactions. All the students who have focused on the interaction between infants and their caregivers (the mothers in the majority of cases) stress the fact that a very special interaction establishes whose features are particularly interesting: the participants develop a kind of protoconversation where, in contexts which are typical of their relationship, the two partners alternate in the exchange of some simple gestures and sounds. The conventions of these exchanges are shared by the partners (an important collection of papers on this line is Bullowa 1979). One important point here is that these are interactions without object, a kind of implementation of intersubjectivity per se (cf. Trevarthen 1977). The controversial question is the status we assign to first interactions. It seems plausible that they play a role for the future development of communication but it is certain that they do not meet the requirements of communication in Gricean terms: the infant is not able to deal with others' mental states. The turning point toward different kinds of interactions is in general situated around the ninth month when there is an important improvement in child's motor abilities. Here the interpretations diverge. Researchers in the Piagetian line consider that it is precisely the development in action that allows for the development of new communicative capacities and in particular for the possibility of elaborating the first speech acts which will in turn be the basic structures for language acquisition (cf. Bates/Camaioni/Volterra 1976). Other researchers consider that the autonomy acquired by children in this period causes a break in the preceding form of communication. A new form of interaction will appear where communication includes the external world as its proper object. According to this point of view there is no unique path from action to language, but the development of action and the exhaustion of the old form of symbiotic communication with the mother lead to the prevailing of a new form of mature interactions (cf. Trevarthen/Hubley 1978). On the contrary both these positions agree on the point that preverbal communication is the frame for language acquisition and consider that the end of the first year is the phase where the transition between preverbal and verbal communication is situated. Grammar, even when seen as a separate module following the Chomskyan point of view, is a kind of refined tool submitted to the requirements of communicative structures already developed in the preverbal phase. A completely different point of view maintains that there is no continuity between the preverbal phase and the linguistic one (cf. Gelman 1983, Shatz 1983). Because the basic requirements for communication are absent, i.e. intentional action and the possibility to model others' mental states, what we have at the beginning is not real communication. So communication is the result of the coupling of different abilities which is realized only in the late phase of language acquisition. Grammar in this view provides the structure which organizes acquisition.

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Thus we are naturally led to introduce more elaborated forms of communication which I would call late acquisitions. In fact, if it can be discussed what transition is, there is no doubt that adult communication is much more articulated and refined than children's one. This is due to two kinds of facts which have a different nature but that rejoin at one point. First, there is the development of mental structures enabling to model higher level mental states, i.e. mental states on mental states (cf. PernerAVimmer 1985). This ability is necessary at least to detect and repair certain errors, to produce and understand ironic and deceptive utterances, to distinguish between deception and joke. Then, there is the acquisition of the rules of conversation. In fact, as it has been emphasized by ethnometodologists, conversation is far from being simply the communication of respective goals and beliefs. A normal adult conversation includes the use of a number of discourse strategies aimed at maintaining politeness. In Airenti/Bara/Colombetti (1993a) we have argued that the very structure of dialogue is a balance between two different kinds of goals: private goals and goals devoted to keep conversational cooperation. Even when there is no agreement on the respective behavioural intents, the conversationalists try to make conversational cooperation possible. This is implemented in dialogue for instance by the preference system and the use of markers when necessary (cf. Comrie 1976). These capacities appear in children rather late and their acquisition requires a long training and the explicit teaching by adults (cf. Foster 1990). What relies conversational rules with the preceding problem of representation is the fact that only the possibility to represent others' mental states makes it possible to understand rules whose only motivation is social and which are realized in a purely conventional way. I have just sketched a brief history of pragmatic acquisitions. What appears even from such concise a presentation is that from a cognitive point of view very different processes are involved. This is the only way to explain the length of the elaboration. In the next sections I shall try to use my own theory of dialogue to show how pragmatic theory and developmental data could meet.

3. A cognitive theory of communication The theory I refer to and which is presented in Airenti/Bara/Colombetti (1993a, b) considers that communication is made possible by two primitive mental states, i.e. mutual belief and communicative intention, and by two kinds of knowledge structures, i.e. behaviour and conversation game. The basic idea behind our work was that communication is a rather trivial human phenomenon, which can become fairly complex in some particular situations. A model of communication has to give account of as simple exchanges as: - „Give me please the screwdriver", „Here it is" - and of the dialogues of double agents that we can find in detective stories (and sometimes even in reality). So we need a simple structure which can be complicated according to necessity. This is not the case of Gricean definition of nonnatural meaning (cf. Grice 1957) which implies at least the attribution of second order beliefs, and at the same time is incapable to rule out cases of noncommunicative transfer of information.

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In our theory we have a primitive concept of communicative intention based in turn on the possibility of complete sharedness which is also a primitive. This means that in the simplest cases no special calculation is necessary, while calculation is necessary indeed to plan or understand more refined interpersonal acts like deceits. To cope with these situations, from the primitive concept as many nesting of mental states as required can be derived. The limit in this case is a problem of performance. Humans are not cognitively able to deal with more than few nestings of mental states. A second major point in the theory is that the other Gricean concept which defines communication, i.e. cooperation has to be modified (cf. Grice 1975, 1978). A clear distinction has to be drawn between private goals and conversational goals. Communication is the way humans have to share with others at least in part their private mental states using conventional rules of conversation. Behavioural goals when communicated are presented openly and can be negotiated. Rules of conversation are the modality it has to be used to this aim. This means that the goal of maintaining conversational cooperation is a standing one, while behavioural cooperation has to be established each time and is not necessarily achieved. This is the case, for instance, when we politely refuse something we have been requested for. In the theory behavioural cooperation is based on behaviour games. The conversationalists share interpersonal plans containing respective actions. This is true of very conventionalized situations, e.g. what can be done in a shop or in the consulting room of a doctor, and of private situations, e.g. the particular ceremonial performed in a given family to put children to bed. Behaviour games are the knowledge structures allowing for understanding the actual meaning of an utterance behind the literal one. Understanding the speaker's meaning of an utterance is to recover the link with a shared behaviour game. This point of view results also in considering the difference between direct and indirect speech acts in a way which is not traditional. In fact both types of acts are interpreted starting from the literal meaning and require for full interpretation the identification of a behaviour game. A further note has to be made regarding the relationship between action and language. Communication is considered as a specific kind of action and consequently any form of communication, either verbal or nonverbal, is treated in the same way. For instance, no distinction is made between signifying approval by words and nodding the head at the same purpose.

4.

Theory of communication and development

Let us come back to developmental data to discuss them in the context of the theory summarized above. We can try now to analyze what are the first interactions. Babies manifest very early their ability to share experience with other humans. This can be seen in the almost immediate synchronization that is achieved in the first common activities with the mother, feeding in particular. Routines are established comprising acts of the mother and very simple movements of

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the baby which later transform in actions too. If we consider that intentional communication is a primitive, just the intention to share experience, where sharedness is a primitive too - and this is in fact what makes the distinction between chimpanzees and humans according to Premack/Premack (1994) - it is clear that in the first interactions we find the first and simplest forms of communication. What is important here is that we speak of forms of communication which are not elaborate but have the same nature of the subsequent more refined instances. More precisely, my point is that the ability to interpret the speaker's meaning on the basis of behaviour games appears already in the first interactions. The relationship between the baby and the mother at the start is rather asymmetrical. It will be the mother who will propose games which can be played by them or who will qualify a gesture of the infant as communicative inserting it in a game. But the child manifests the capacity of participating in the games, implicitly understanding their rules: turntaking, repetition, possible slight variations on the basis of an established routine which attributes meaning to single actions. If we come back to the beautiful definition by Trevarthen of communication without object, we find on one side the baby who at the beginning has only her predisposition to interact, and on the other side the mother who proposes games which are rapidly acquired and become the background on which the baby constructs her relationship with the others: any event which disturbs this routine is a trouble and any new variation is a source of pleasure. When the abilities of baby augment, and in particular motor abilities appear, the real change is that the baby makes the world enter in her interactions and can propose games invented by herself: for instance she throws away an object expecting for the mother to pick it up and give it back to her. What makes playing games in these situations different from the situations where only adults are involved is again asymmetry. Conditions of validity of games are in general dictated by adults. The amusing game of throwing objects, for instance, cannot be done with breakable or heavy objects, has to be stopped at lunch time, etc. The function of language, when it appears, in a sense is not a revolution, in that it does not change the fundamental structures of communication. All the same it offers a lot of possibilities on the side of content. Games that can be played using only nonverbal items are limited in number. Moreover language speeds up the acquisition of new games and particularly their transmission. In fact what is characteristic of first interactions is that the persons involved are few. To construct games just performing actions requires a very intimate acquaintance. When two persons know each other very well a simple gesture performed by one can be understood by the other as the proposal of playing a certain game but the same gesture for a stranger will be completely meaningless. In the first interactions this is the only actual possibility. Language allows for naming games and proposing them to a much larger set of persons. Up to this point what the child can do is a restricted set of operations. The richness is given by the number of games that can grow rapidly, but the procedure remains simple as simple is the model of the other which the child uses: people are influenced by communicative acts as doors are influenced by pressure. A very young child in case of failure just cries, both if a door does not

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open and when the mother does not give a desired object (cf. Harding/Golinkoff 1979). Starting with the second year the child will try to repair the failure but again the strategies will not be different in the two cases: repetition of the act, repetition with some change, etc. (cf. Golinkoff 1983). It is worth noting that among the things that can be done by a child who has just acquired language there is the interpretation of indirect speech acts (cf. Shatz 1978). That is, what it is a typical difficulty for pragmatic theories is not particularly problematic for young children. On the contrary the production of indirect speech acts is a phenomenon appearing later. Gordon/ErvinTripp (1984), for instance, have found the use of indirect requests, under particular conditions, at the age of four. Following the pragmatic theory I am using, the explanation is not difficult. There is no difference in interpreting direct and indirect speech acts as in both cases the actual interpretation requires the establishment of a link with the behaviour game which gives the utterance pragmatic meaning. Instead, producing indirect speech acts implies the acknowledgement that some phrases are generally considered more polite and thus have to be privileged with respect to more direct ones. What makes communication possible for a child who is not able to deal with higher order mental states and to conceive the fact that different persons can hold different representations of situations and of others' mental states, is the attribution of sharedness. The ability to perform more refined communicative acts is due to the comprehension that sharedness is not always verified. But sharedness is still the assumption that is used in trivial exchanges even in adult life and which makes them not problematic. The derivation from sharedness of nested mental states is the way to cope with particularly critical situations as for instance when we need to know if someone wants to deceive us. The ability to produce realistic models of others is also a prerequisite to use the whole set of conversation rules. Only when able to form an accurate model of the other the child will understand that an indirect request can be more effective than a direct one, that in some way language can affect others' feelings, that nobody likes refusals, etc. The possibility to deal with these facts in an effective way is the result of a long process of learning done by trial and error and with the constant assistance of the adults.

5. Conclusions Pragmatics as a discipline is the collection of different theories dealing with distinct aspects of the problem: what can be the logical definition of communication, what are speech acts and how they are interpreted, which are the typical facts characterizing conversations. The tenet of my work is that communication whether linguistic or not is one of the main human abilities and as such has to be studied, i.e. it has to be connected with its cognitive bases. This means that the study of communication in its accomplished forms cannot be separated from the study of its development. In fact the positions stating that there is no continuity between first interactions and adult communication rely on definitions of communication of logical derivation. This results in denying the possibility for infants to meet the requirements for communication and leaves the nature of

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first interactions unexplained. Developmental psychologists who have worked on speech acts had the intuition that if children can perform speech acts before language acquisition there must be a communicative ability which couples with language, but they have renounced to use this discovery to influence in turn pragmatic theory. An indubitable fact is that even in adult communication there are complex interactions but also very simple ones. So the most economic hypothesis is that there is a simple functioning of communicative exchanges, which is in use very early in development and that persists later. What is acquired subsequently is a variety of tools which allow adults to depart from the basic scheme when requested by the situation. What I am proposing is an attempt to naturalize pragmatics following a line which proved so rich in the study of grammar. To consider pragmatics as the domain of linguistic performance has not permitted until now to clarify the link between the fundamental requirements for communication, which cannot be established on a mere logical basis, and the various phenomena characterizing communication in the multiplicity of real situations.

References Airenti, G./Bara, B.G./Colombetti, M. (1993a), Conversation and Behaviour Gaines in the Pragmatics of Dialogue. In: Cognitive Science 17, 197-256. Airenti, G./Bara, B.G./Colombetti, M. (1993b), Failures, Exploitations and Deceits in Communication. In: Journal of Pragmatics 20, 4, 303-326. Bates, E./Camaioni, L./Volterra, V. (1976), Sensorimotor Performatives. In: Bates, E. (ed.), Language and Context, New York: Academic Press, 49-71. Bullowa, M. (ed.) (1979), Before Speech, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bruner, J.S. (1975), The Ontogenesis of Speech Acts. In: Journal of Child language 2, 1-19. Comrie, B. (1976), Aspect: an Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and Related Problems, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Foster, S.H. (1990), The Communicative Competence of Young Children, London: Longman. Gelman, R. (1983), Reconsidering the Transition from Prelinguistic to Linguistic Communication. In: Golinkoff, R.M. (ed.), The Transition from Prelinguistic to Linguistic Communication, Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlsbaum, 275-279. Golinkoff, R.M. (1983), The Preveibal Negotiation of Failed Messages: Insights into the Transition Period. In: Golinkoff R.M. (ed.), The Transition from Prelinguistic to Linguistic Communication, Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlsbaum, 57-78. Gordon, D./Ervin-Tripp, S. (1984), The Structure of Children's Requests. In: Schiefelbusch, R.L./Pickar, J.(eds ), The Acquisition of Communicative Competence, Baltimore, MD: University Park Press, 295-322. Grice, H.P. (1957), Meaning. In: Philosophical Review 67, 377-388. Grice, H.P. (1975), Logic and Conversation. In: Cole, P/Morgan, J.L.(eds.), Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts, New York, N.Y.: Academic Press, 41-58. Grice, H.P. (1978), Further Notes on Logic and Conversation. In: Cole, P. (ed.), Syntax and Semantics 9: Pragmatics, New York, N.Y.: Academic Press, 113-128. Harding, C.G./Golinkoff, R M. (1979), The Origins of Intentional Vocalizations in Prelinguistic Infants. In: Child Development 50, 13-40. Levinson, S.C. ( 1983), Pragmatics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Perner, J./Wimmer, H. (1985), „John thinks that Mary thinks that...": Attribution of Second-order Beliefs by 5- to 10-year Old Children. In: Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 39, 437-471. Premack, D./Premack, J. A. (1994),Why Animals Have neither Culture nor History. In: Ingold, T. (ed.), Companion Encyclopedia of Anthropology, London: Routledge.

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Shatz, M.(1978), Children's Comprehension of their Mother's Question-directives. In: Journal of Child Language 5, 39-46. Shatz, M. (1983), On Transition, Continuity and Coupling: an Alternative Approach to Communicative Development. In: Golinkoff, R.M. (ed.), The Transition from Prelinguistic to Linguistic Communication, Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlsbaum, 43-55. Sperber, D./Wilson, D. (1981), Pragmatics. In: Cognition 10, 281-286. Trevarthen, C. (1977), Descriptive Analyses of Infant Communicative Behaviour. In: Schaffer, H.R. (ed.), Studies in Mother-Infant Interaction, London: Academic Press, 227-270. Trevarthen, C./Hubley, P. (1978), Secondary Intersubjectivity: Confidence, Confiding and Acts of Meaning in the First Year. In: Lock, A. (ed), Action, Gesture, and Symbol: the Emergence of Language, London: Academic Press, 183-229.

Acknowledgements The research reported in this paper has been supported by the MURST (Italian Ministery for University and Scientific and Technological Research) for the year 1993.

Jaromir Janousek Content Analysis of Dialogue: a Psychological Approach

1. Method of regulated dialogue 2. Content analysis as a part of method 3. Bakhtin about dialogicity, reported speech, and interanimation of voices 4. Reexamining the method of regulated dialogue in relation to Bakhtin's ideas 5. Content analysis of dialogue as a whole References

1. Method of regulated dialogue The dialogue is understood here as a kind of interpersonal communication where the following traits distinguishing it from ordinary conversation are present: 1) the thematic goal/task orientation; 2) the overt reciprocity, and the inner mutuality, i.e. the interrelations are included and reflected; 3) the thematic goal/task orientation and the mutuality are interwoven. This means that the solving of common task is mediated through the understanding of mutual interrelations and the understanding of mutual interrelations is mediated through the solving of common task. In special cases of the dialogue, the task consists in comprehension of mutual interrelations themselves (cf. Janousek 1973). For social psychological analysis of the dialogue we devised the „method of regulated (controlled) dialogue" (cf. Janousek 1984, 94£f., 107fF.). It consists of three phases. In the first phase, two or three participants have to solve jointly the task each participant using equally delimited number of replicas. Replica means taking the floor. Participants have to give explicitly each other the floor when ending one's own replica. - In the second phase, each participant has to reproduce the whole finished communication, his/her own replicas as well as the partner's as precisely as possible. Each replica is thus reconstructed both by its actor and by its recipient. - In the third phase, the participants have to write additional reports on their communication. The report has to be in the form of indirect speech in the past tense. The replica has to be written by its author in the first person and by its recipient in the third person. Thus, the structure of the additional report induces the spontaneous categorization by the participants themselves, namely through such verbal forms as „1 proposed that...", „She/he objected that...".

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2. Content analysis as a part of method In each phase of the method the content analysis was carried out. The content analysis consisted of categorizing both uttered and recalled replicas as well as of using the spontaneous categorization included in additionally reported replicas. Different categorial systems can be chosen in correspondence with different problem solving situations. For the first phase, we used six categories: 1. generalization; 2. concretization; 3. appeal to the partner; 4. agreement with the partner; 5. disagreement with the partner; 6. summing up the shared view. Another set of categories was used for the second phase and its comparison with the first phase. The categories were as follows: 1. expressions used in the uttered replicas and in the subsequent recall used by their authors but not by their recipients; 2. expressions used in the uttered replicas and in the subsequent recall used by their recipients but not by their authors; 3. expressions used in the uttered replicas but not used in the subsequent recall either by their authors or by their recipients; 4. expressions not used in the uttered replicas and in the subsequent recall used by their authors but not by their recipients; 5. expressions not used in the uttered replicas and in the subsequent recall used by their recipients but not by their authors; 6. expressions not used in the uttered replicas and in the subsequent recall used by their authors as well as by their recipients. Actually, discriminating possibilities 1, 2, 4, 5 were used. The possibilities 3 and 6, of which particularly 6 is quite complex, would require further analysis. There are many possibilities of modification and change in recall. Often, tongue slips occur. We take into account only such new expressions which mean the modification or change of the content categorized in the first phase. We have in mind increasing, reducing, neutralizing or even changing into opposite, of generalizing, concretizing, agreement, disagreement. We have in mind using question instead of proposal in appeal, accentuating one's own view instead of summing up shared view, etc. For example, the uttered replica „Good memory in itself does not guarantee successful studies" is recalled like „Surely, good memory in itself does not guarantee successful studies", or „May be, good memory in itself does not guarantee successful studies". For the content analysis of the third phase, the spontaneous verbal expressions introducing the indirect speech were used. For example, author's report of a replica goes like this: „1 objected that good memory in itself does not guarantee successful studies". The recipient reported the same replica like this: „He/she agreed that good memory in itself does not guarantee successful studies". Verbal forms like „1 objected" and „She/he agreed" make it possible to determine the existence and degree of difference or coincidence in the categorization of a given replica both by its author and by its recipient. In our example, full coincidence would be expressed with the pair of verbal forms „1 objected" - „he/she disagreed", full difference with the pair of verbal forms „1 objected" - „he/she agreed", partial difference with pair „1 said" - „he /she agreed" or „disagreed", and partial coincidence with the pair „1 objected" - „he/she said". The distinction between partial difference and partial coincidence is based on the observation that the neutral report concerning the other's replica and the qualifying self-report of the author are closer to

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each other than the neutral self-report and the qualifying report of the other concerning the replica of the author.

3. Bakhtin about dialogicity, reported speech, and interanimation of voices Later on, we started to reexamine our method in relation to M. Bakhtin's ideas (cf. Janousek 1993). First, about Bakhtin's idea on dialogicity of consciousness in the sense of its voicedness (cf. Bakhtin 1973, Chapter Five). The voice, especially if it is untrained, is a highly expressive instrument revealing inner mental processes (cf. Allport 1961, 482ff.). Nevertheless, the concept of voice at Bakhtin cannot be reduced to an account of vocal-auditory signals. It represents „the speaking personality", „the speaking consciousness" (cf. Wertsch 1991, 51fF). Therefore, the concept of voice expresses the inner belongingness of the external content to the participant of the dialogue. The voicedness of the content can be characterized as the inner echo of the content within the participant in connection with its mediator. Second important idea of Bakhtin concerns „heteroglossia", „interanimation of voices", „polyphony", „double-voicedness", „multivoicedness" or „varivoicedness" of words as the main trait of dialogue (cf. Bakhtin 1973 and 1983). „Heteroglossia" is expressed by the hybrid construction. The hybrid construction is an utterance that appears to belong by its syntactic and compositional markers to a single speaker. Actually, it contains mixed within it two utterances, two speech manners, two styles, two semantic and axiological systems. Bakhtin gives an example from Charles Dickens's Little Dorrit: „It began to be widely understood that Mr. Merdle who had done society the admirable service of making so much money of it, could not be suffered to remain a commoner". The subordinate clause (of making so much money out of it) is in direct authorial speech and the main clause is someone else's speech (at the level of common opinion). The main and subordinate clauses are constructed in different semantic and axiological systems (cf. Bakhtin 1983, 305ff.).

4. Reexamining the method of regulated dialogue in relation to Bakhtin's ideas How do we reexamine our method of regulated dialogue in relation to Bakhtin's ideas at present? The inner voicedness of the actually uttered replicas (the first phase of the method) comes to the foreground in rare cases only of the explicit statements like „You mean that good memory in itself guarantees successful studies but I don't think so". Nevertheless, voices are always included as far as the replica of one participant is the reaction to the replica of the other participant. At least two voices are therefore hidden in one single replica. The prerequisite for the analysis of individual voices is the existence of a general voice. We could call it the voice of general observer. It takes on different linguistic forms (social language, speech genre) as well as social psychological ones (public opinion, superego, conscience) etc. In

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our example the voice of general observer is represented by the subclause „good memory in itself does not guarantee successful studies". The methodological importance of the general observer's voice consists in serving as an etalon for comparison of individual voices. The inner voicedness comes more to the foreground in the second phase. New expressions in recalled replicas emphasizing own contribution, derogating the partner's statement etc. can be interpreted as expressions of inner voicedness which implies the comparison of own voice with voices both of the partner and of the general observer. We receive the following disclosure of voices due to comparison of actually uttered and subsequently recalled expressions:

uttered expressions author's recall partner's recall voices disclosed yes yes yes no no no

yes no yes yes no yes

yes yes no no yes yes

yes

no

no

general observer author differing from general ob. partner differing from general ob. self-contained author self-contained partner coincidence of self-contained author and partner author and partner differing from general observer

The third phase is most suitable for disclosing the voicedness and interanimation of voices. Let us take the case of the recipient's additional report: „She/he said that good memory in itself does not guarantee successful studies". Three voices are involved here. The voice of the original author specifies here the content: „good memory in itself does not...". - The voice of the original recipient specifies the connection of the content with its mediator: „she/he said that ...". In addition to it, the voice of the original recipient can also modify the reported content in comparison with the original one, for example: „she/he said a doubtful idea that good memory in itself does not. . .". Let us take now the case when the original author reports his own replica: „1 said that good memory in itself does not...". In this case three voices are involved too, but in an other way. The voice of the original author specifies both the content and the connection of the content with the mediator: „1 said that ...". - The voice of the original recipient is here more hidden but it is included too, namely as the original receiver of the replica: „1 said (to him/her) that ...". In a hidden way, the voice of the original recipient can also modify the reported content in comparison with the original one, for example: „1 said (to him/her) that actually good memory in itself does n o t . . . " . - The voice of the general observer is implicitly included in a twofold manner again in the way given above.

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5. Content analysis of dialogue as a whole Doing content analysis of the dialogue as a psychological phenomenon includes comparison of uttered replicas with their recalls and additional reports both of original authors and of original recipients. In this sense, the psychological approach to the content analysis is multidimensional and contextual. When the observer tries to categorize in the first phase of the method the content of uttered replica, putting oneself in the place of the relevant participant is often not enough. The observer has to look round for the context. It is useful to take into account the context of the author's replica, the response of the partner, and the new reaction of the original author to the response of the partner. This „triadic" frame of reference brings more objectivity (cf. Janousek 1968, 98ff.). The response of the partner to the replica and the new reaction of the original author to the response of the partner help to identify the meaning of the replica both for its author and its recipient. The context is strengthened when comparing uttered replicas with their recall in the second phase. Let us assume that the replica „Good memory in itself does not guarantee successful studies" was categorized by the external observer with the help of the triadic context as „disagreement". Let us assume further on that the recall of the replica by the author was either purely, the memory in itself does not...", or „May be, the memory in itself does not...". Since the recall takes place after the whole dialogue, it is influenced by the experience with the dialogue as a whole. The different inner voicedness shows the different place of „disagreement" for the author within the whole significant structure of the dialogue, and thus the different whole significant structure of the dialogue for him too. The additional report in the third phase can be taken from the content analytical view as the counterpart of the external observer's categorizing. Spontaneous categorizing connected with the additional reporting means that the participant takes into account the inner implicit context of voices. The participant not only knows but also feels the polyphony of voices which pervades him/her. Let us take now our example as a whole. Let the replica „Good memory in itself does not guarantee successful studies" be in the first phase categorized as „disagreement". Let the recall of the original author be purely, good memory in itself does not ..." Let the recall of the original recipient be „May be, good memory in itself does not...". Let the additional report of the original author be „1 objected that good memory in itself does not ...". Let the additional report of the original recipient be „He said that good memory in itself does not. . .". In our case, original external categorization „disagreement" is validated through the content analysis of the dialogue as a whole. The resolute character of the author's recall „surely" as well as the qualifying verb form of the author's additional report „1 objected" speaks directly in favour of categorization „disagreement". On the other side, the weakening character of the recipient's recall „may be" as well as the neutral verb form of the recipient's additional report „he said" speak through their conceding manner in favour of categorization „disagreement" too, but

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indirectly. The external categorization „disagreement" is thus drawn through subsequent analysis into the inner understanding of the whole dialogue by its participants and is thus enriched. Other cases can be more complicated. For example, additional report of the original recipient would be „He/she agreed that good memory in itself does not ..." In such a case, the external categorization „disagreement" would be disapproved, and the inner understanding of the dialogue would be contradictory. We should move to the analysis of such influencing factors as personality traits of participants, the specific topic of communication, the situation, etc. However, these factors are of an other order than uttered replicas, their recalls and additional reports. When evaluating the influence of these factors, we would move towards the experimental analysis of it. For experiments, the content analysis described in this paper can serve as a partial instrument.

References Allport, G. W. (1961), Pattern and Growth in Personality, New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Bakhtin, M. M. (1973), Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics, Ann Arbor: Ardis. Bakhtin, M. M. (1983), The Dialogic Imagination, Austin: University of Texas Press. Janouiek, J. (1993), Dialogue and Joint Activity: a Psychological Approach. In: Brzezinski, J./DiNuovo, S./Marek, T./Maruszewski, T., Creativity and Consciousness: Philosophical and Psychological Dimensions, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 75-100. Janouiek, J. (1968), Socialni komunikace [Social Communication], Praha: Svoboda. Janousek, J. (1984), Spoleina iinnost a komunikace [Joint Activity and Communication], Praha: Svoboda. Janousek, J. (1973), Ukolove zamereny dialog spolupracujicich osob v podminkach ruzne vychozx informovanosti [Task-directed Dialogue of Cooperating Persons Possessing Different Initial Information], In: Ceskoslovenska psychologie 2, 107-124. Wertsch, J. (1991), Voices of the Mind, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Véronique Traverso

Quelques phénomènes liés à la gestion des émotions dans les séquences de „confidence conversationnelle"

1. Définitions préliminaires 2. La séquence de,confidence conversationnelle' 3. Les émotions de la confidence 4. Analyse Notes Références

1. Définitions préliminaires ,Confidence' évoque en premier lieu une thématique: c'est un échange focalisé sur un des interlocuteurs, un échange qui concerne plus précisément ses .réserves' (cf. Goffinan 1973). On peut aussi, comme le fait Ferrand (1991), associer la confidence à une autre métaphore goffinanienne, celle des .coulisses', que celles-ci soient conçues en fonction: • de la situation: par exemple lorsqu'un locuteur aborde avec un certain interlocuteur des domaines qui ne sont pas abordés habituellement avec lui dans cette situation (c'est précisément ce à quoi renvoie Goffinan: „lieu en rapport avec une représentation donnée, où l'on a toute latitude de contredire sciemment l'impression produite par la représentation" 1973, 110); • de normes culturelles (une certaine partie du territoire affectif ou cognitif des individus fait habituellement partie de ce qui reste caché). Du fait que la confidence aborde des éléments généralement cachés, voilés (ou justement,réservés'), on peut, avec les psycho-sociologues, parler à son propos de dévoilement de soi [self-disclosure\. „[...] what individuals reveal about themselves to others (including thoughts, feelings and experiences)" (Derlega et al., 1993,1). Ces éléments ne suffisent cependant pas à cerner vraiment la thématique d'une confidence, car un récit sur des exploits de chasse par exemple pourrait entrer dans ces définitions. Un tel récit est en effet focalisé sur un des participants, et les exploits de chasse peuvent, dans certaines situations, constituer un domaine qui, faisant partie de la coulisse, devrait rester hors de l'interaction. Pourtant, ce récit resterait un récit; son récepteur ne deviendrait pas confident pour autant. Pour que l'on ait affaire à une séquence de confidence, il semble nécessaire qu'il y ait une forme de problématisation de ce qui est évoqué. Au fond, cette séquence ne correspond pas simplement au fait de confier quelque chose à quelqu'un, comme on lui remettrait une enveloppe contenant des informations confidentielles (un secret), c'est une séquence où le locuteur parlant de lui manifeste une incomplétude, correspondant à

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la part du confident et de l'interaction. Ainsi, celui qui se confie n'apporte pas ,tous prêts' des éléments de savoir à son interlocuteur, comme il le ferait dans un , simple' récit, mais il apporte des éléments que l'interaction et son interlocuteur vont contribuer à élaborer. Outre une thématique, la confidence peut aussi évoquer d'emblée certains objectifs. Les écrits sur le dévoilement en présentent deux grands types, relatifs: • aux relations: de nombreuses études sont consacrées au rôle de la confidence dans le développement de la relation interindividuelle (voir par exemple Derlega et al. 1976, 1993; Pearce/Sharp 1973) et dans l'obtention d'une validation sociale; • au locuteur: obtention de la réaction d'autrui, d'aide, soutien ou conseils (Derlega ibid), ou encore opération de „partage social des émotions"1.

2. La séquence de,confidence conversationnelle' Un premier travail sur la confidence (Traverso 1994, 1996) m'a permis de dégager certaines caractéristiques de la séquence de ,confidence conversationnelle'. - Elle est généralement initiée par le locuteur qui va parler de lui. Le thème de la séquence est introduit selon les procédés décrits par Jefferson (1978) pour les récits conversationnels: il est apporté dans le fil de l'interaction, à propos d'autre chose. Ce mode d'introduction détourné le rend parfois difficilement perceptible pour l'interlocuteur, qui risque de n'y voir que du feu. C'est pourquoi il arrive que plusieurs essais soient nécessaires au locuteur pour installer son thème et le voir ratifié, à l'issue de quelque négociation ou ajustement. - Les objectifs locaux dans cette séquence ne sont pas les mêmes pour les deux interlocuteurs. Les analyses montrent que différents objectifs semblent se combiner: pour le locuteur qui ,vide son sac' : faire comprendre, convaincre; pour le confident comprendre et souvent (lorsque les confidences concernent des situations dysphoriques, ce qui est le cas dans le corpus étudié), trouver des solutions. La présence de cette pluralité d'objectifs peut parfois conduire à une ,rivalité' pour la définition de la séquence, traitée par l'un comme un épisode de .décharge affective' et par son interlocuteur comme une recherche de solution, une demande de conseil, etc.2. - Les rôles conversationnels endossés par les partenaires dans cette séquence deviennent complémentaires, locuteur/confident3. Le plus souvent, le premier gère la séquence dans son ensemble alors que le second assume un rôle caractérisé en premier lieu par l'écoute. - On peut dégager le déroulement prototypique suivant pour la séquence de confidence: Ouverture (modification du cadre participatif) Locuteur Introduction du thème Confident Ratification par enchaînement sur le thème (avec ou sans négociation) Exposition Locuteur Evocation, exploitation Confident Ecoute-Recherche d'explicitation et d'éclaircissements Partage Confident Proposition d'explications, de solution, conseil, soutien Locuteur Acceptation ou refus

Quelques phénomènes liés à la gestion des émotions dans les séquences de „ confidence conversationnelle " Clôture Locuteur Confident

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Marqueurs de clôture, introduction d'un nouveau thème Ratification du changement: enchaînement sur le nouveau thème

Ces phases sont liées aux objectifs mentionnés ci-dessus et un défaut de synchronisation entre les partenaires dans leur enchaînement peut conduire à une négociation (voire à une dispute, cf Jefferson/Lee 1981).

3. Les émotions de la confidence La séquence de confidence semble liée, plus que d'autres, à la présence des émotions, dans et par l'interaction. On peut schématiquement distinguer trois niveaux où les saisir. a) Ce dont on parle Le locuteur d'une confidence rapporte toujours plus ou moins une émotion (un état affectif) -résultant d'un événement ou d'une série d'événements - qu'il s'efforce de faire comprendre à son interlocuteur. A partir de là, son discours peut être plus ou moins factuel, selon qu'il insiste davantage sur son état affectif ou sur l'événement. b) La situation de confidence source d'émotion Le fait que l'un d'entre eux dévoile une partie de ses réserves personnelles crée une situation particulière pour les deux partenaires de l'interaction. Toujours en référence à Goflman, on peut dire que la confidence constitue: • pour le locuteur, une situationrisquéedans laquelle son territoire, dévoilé, encourt des menaces. Sa face aussi est .fragilisée' puisque ce qu'il raconte risque de détériorer son image4. Malgré cela, il est probable que la confidence lui apporte un certain bénéfice puisque, d'une manière générale, il en est l'initiateur. • pour le confident, une situation avant tout valorisante ou flatteuse puisque, se dévoilant à lui, son interlocuteur lui témoigne de la confiance. Mais, d'un autre côté, la séquence recèle aussi des aspects plus menaçants, essentiellement pour son territoire: perte de temps, puisque cette séquence de l'interaction est consacrée au locuteur - en particulier dans le cas des épanchements à répétition - ; voire contamination des états d'âme. Cette première représentation permet de supposer l'existence d'émotions directement liées à la figuration: • pour le locuteur, du fait qu'il se dévoile: inquiétude, peut-être gêne; et en fonction de ses attentes: espoir, soulagement, etc. • pour le confident, du fait qu'on lui fait confiance: contentement; mais du fait de l'empiétement sur son territoire: agacement, peut-être gêne, etc.

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Mais elle reste cependant insuffisante pour saisir la spécificité de la séquence. D faut y rajouter le fait que, parallèlement aux menaces et anti-menaces mentionnées ci-dessus, la situation qui se met en place modifie ce qui est présenté comme fondamental dans le fonctionnement de la rencontre interindividuelle. En effet: - au lieu de chercher à préserver son territoire de toute intrusion, le locuteur en dévoile au contraire certaines zones, et attend de son interlocuteur confident qu'il commette des .ingérences'. On a affaire à une sorte de renversement puisque respecter la circonspection habituellement de mise deviendrait menaçant. Mais il s'agit d'un renversement partiel: il convient en quelque sorte de commettre des ingérences tout en respectant le territoire de l'autre. Ces modifications, par effet de miroir, affectent de même le confident; - la face du locuteur, elle aussi, cesse d'être l'objet du protectionnisme dont Auchlin (1990, 1991) discute la vraisemblance, puisque bien souvent, au cours d'une confidence, le locuteur,exhibe la faille'. Même s'il est vrai que, dans certains cas, par son discours même, il se construit une image qui peut être valorisante, il n'en reste pas moins que la situation complexifie fortement la représentation théâtrale de l'interaction selon la théorie des faces. On peut dire qu'au fond, dans cette situation, les locuteurs ne cherchent plus, avant toute chose, à ressortir .intacts' de l'interaction. c) L'interaction source d'émotion Les émotions liées à l'interaction (les „aflfects conversationnels", Cosnier 1994) ne diffèrent guère dans la séquence de confidence de ce qui se passe dans d'autres types de séquences, sinon que l'évocation d'une émotion et surtout la modification du fonctionnement de la figuration créent dans cette séquence une tension particulière et lui confèrent un enjeu beaucoup plus .grave' que d'autres séquences de l'interaction. A travers cette présentation succincte, on voit que le terme .émotion' n'a pas le même dénoté selon le niveau où l'on se situe. Ce qui est évoqué par le locuteur (au premier niveau) peut être une émotion (comme la colère par exemple), mais peut aussi, et c'est souvent le cas, être un .état affectif - sans doute vécu comme troublant ou non neutre, ce qui lui vaut de devenir thème de l'interaction. Les émotions liées à la situation et à l'interaction sont des émotions plus ponctuelles, émanant de ,1'ici et maintenant' de l'échange, fortement liées aux attentes des participants par rapport à ce qui est en train de se jouer. Les traces que l'analyse peut nous permettre de détecter sont, elles aussi, distinctes selon le niveau où l'on se situe: - au premier niveau, il s'agit d'une réévocation d'émotion (d'une émotion stable et extérieure à l'interaction). On pourra donc observer comment le locuteur dit, décrit et parfois met en scène son émotion; - au second niveau (la situation de confidence), ce sont certains éléments récurrents de la gestion interactionnelle qui nous semblent significatifs; - au troisième niveau (l'interaction elle-même), puisque la,réalité' 5 des aflfects conversationnels est hors de notre champ, c'est plutôt sur la manière dont se gèrent l'incomplétude, le .vouloir faire

Quelques phénomènes liés à la gestion des émotions dans les séquences de „ confidence conversationnelle "

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comprendre', ,vouloir convaincre', et le .vouloir comprendre', ,vouloir aider' que doivent porter les observations.

4. Analyses Les confidences analysées sont extraites d'un corpus de conversations familières enregistrées au cours de visites entre amis6. Elles sont toutes initiées par le locuteur qui se confie, à l'exception d'une seule, qui est une ,confidence en retour' (voir ci-dessous). S'agissant d'un travail en cours7, ce qui suit constitue une présentation de quelques phénomènes analysés selon les trois niveaux que l'on vient de dégager. a) L'évocation de,l'état d'âme' A ce premier niveau, on remarque que les évocations .directes' de l'état affectif sont très rares (par exemple, chercher à le nommer). Tout au plus trouve-t-on des énoncés récurrents, ponctuant le discours, qui peuvent être des énoncés évaluatifs généraux (par exemple „c'est pas évident", „c'est bizarre", „c'est insupportable"), et quelquefois des énoncés descriptifs par lesquels le locuteur tente de préciser ce qu'il appelle presque systématiquement son .impression' (par exemple,,j'ai l'impression de pas avoir d'énergie"). L'essentiel de l'évocation est effectué par le récit de ce qui est source, plus ou moins directe, de l'état affectif du locuteur. Au niveau de la structure de la séquence, les récits illustrent ce qui est dit dans une assertion initiale posant globalement le thème de la séquence, par exemple8: L parle des tensions qui existent actuellement avec son ami. L'assertion qui a posé le thème de la séquence est: ,,j 'sais pas i craque Alex c 'temps-ci\ reprise en ,,j 'ai l'impression que tout c 'que j'peux faire l'énerve". L - non mais alors en plus avant-hier [...] quand j'suis rentrée d'chez Pdocteur... d'sons l'aut' soir quand Alex est v'nuj'lui ai dit euh t'sais j'suis allée voir l'docteur nananna et puis::... i dit alors... ben alors j'iui ai dit... i'me dit ben toi qu'as déjà pas d'énergie euh... ça va tout arranger (silence 3"84) C-(rires) L-j'dis mais p'têt que j'ai pas d'énergie justement pa'c'que... j'suis trop hypotendue et que... j'suis trop naze pour avoir d'I'énergie t'sais.. îp'tain les nerfs (rires)9

Les ,scènes' créées dans les récits, comme le montre Tannen (1989), favorisent l'engagement des participants. Ici, on peut dire que leur effet (cf. „l'évaluation" qu'ils attendent, Labov/Waletzky 1966, leur „dimension configurationnelle", Adam 1985, ou „interactive", Brès 1994 - c'est-à-dire leur sens dans la séquence) est la compréhension (le partage) par le confident de l'émotion évoquée. C'est ce qui se passe clairement dans cet autre extrait de la même confidence (en gras): L - i rentre et i'm'dit euh... enfin i rentre i'm'dit t'as fait à mangerî j'ui dit non et puis euh... i'm'dit oh merde et puis après i m'a plus parlé C - ben i fallait lui dire t'as qu'à aller euh... au hamburger me d'ia Ré [...] ça... ça m'tuerait t'sais

Véronique Traverso

302 b) Les émotions liées à la situation

Je ne mentionnerai que deux phénomènes apparentés à la gestion globale de la séquence, b l ) La fuite hors de la confidence L - alors au bout d'un moment euh... j'ai pris mes sappes [j'iui ai dit bon à tout à l'heure C[tu t'es tirée C - j'aime vach'ment ta coupe de ch'vera en tous cas I - c'est vraiT [s'ensuit une discussion assez longue sur les cheveux] C-ben ouais mais d't'feçon euh... avec tout c'que tu nous fais d'puis:: la rentrée (rires)... (inaudible).... [...]

Ici, à la fin du récit, à l'instant où i] devrait produire une évalutation, le confident rompt le thème (intervention en gras). Dans le deuxième exemple, c'est après une question du confident que se produit la rupture momentanée du thème par le locuteur: C - mais c'est î curieux j'trouve pa'cque... quand même euh... souvent on t'fàit c'reproche L-hm C-mais: c'qu'y a d'bizarre c'qu'moi je... ressens pas du tout ça chez toi au contraire j'trouve que... tu dépenses ouais une énergie phénoménale (rires)... c'est vach'ment curieux (1"66) non t l ^ o b î c'est beau t C- quoi t L - la table C-j'I'ai piquée au grenier... [...] J qui l'avait mise au grenier... j'hii ai empruntée L - t ouais non mais c'est vrai que... t'vois au jour le jour comme ça... j'veux dire euh... pour faire des trucs c'est vrai qu'j'ai pas tell'ment d'en... d'sons t'vois pour aller au cinoche et tout . euh... (...)

On peut comprendre ce phénomène comme le ménagement d'instants de ,répit' avant une augmentation de l'engagement des participants dans le thème: • pour le premier exemple, de la part du confident, avant de produire son évaluation du récit, donc de prendre position par rapport à la,dispute' qui lui est narrée; • pour le deuxième exemple, de la part de la locutrice, avant de répondre à une question l'engageant plus encore à parler d'elle. Ces débrayages thématiques ne sont pas de réelles ruptures, puisque la confidence est réintroduite dans un deuxième temps par celui qui l'a interrompue. Ils apparaissent plutôt comme des instants de relâche de la tension inhérente au dévoilement, dont il faudrait voir dans quelles conditions ils peuvent être utilisés comme portes de sorties pour qui désire arrêter le jeu10. b2) La confidence en retour A la clôture de sa propre confidence, la locutrice 1 oriente l'interaction vers une confidence en retour: Fin de la confidence précédente L - ma foi...mais j'y vais à Caen... j'y vais le... 27 avril pour un congrès... on va monter là-haut on verra bien à c'moment là... (3"19)... 'y'avait un super truc à l'opéra... un truc de danse... cette semaine j'crois la compagnie Maguy::... machin C - Maguy Marin

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h - ouais j'voulais y aller... j'aurais bien aimé y'a- mais j'crois qu'c'est fini là 'ça doit être le dernier soir ce soir... btanpis: (inaudible très bas) Inversion des rôles. Confidence en retour (L=C*; C=L*) C*- t'as foutu quoi toi c'te s'maine... t'as bossé L*- j'ai bossé un peu j'ai dormi euh les après midi (rire)... ouais j'étais assez et ben non j'étais énervée pa'c'que j'ai vach'ment d'boulot t'sais [et plus ça va plus... c'pasqu'j'enaiplus C*[ouais L*- mais qu'j'm'en rends [tu vois j'm'en rends d'plus en plus compte t'sais comme ça fait [cette C*[ouais [ouais L*- impression [...la confidence se développe sur son sentiment de stress]

La question de C (en gras) n'est pas une simple question de mise à jour des savoirs partagés (comme on en trouve en début d'interaction), c'est un ,renvoi d'ascenseur' qui signifie en quelque sorte: ,j'ai parlé de moi, parlons de toi". C'est, pour le premier locuteur, une façon de ,réparer' l'envahissement du temps dont il s'est rendu coupable et en même temps de conduire l'autre à se dévoiler à son tour. La confidence en retour est, dans une certaine mesure, provoquée par une pression contextuelle et situationnelle vers la confidence. Ces deux phénomènes relatifs à la gestion de l'interaction manifestent la gêne liée à la confidence: gêne d'envahir le temps de l'interaction, de se dévoiler, d'être conduit en ingérence dans le territoire d'autrui. Parallèlement, ils sont une expression d'empathie de la part de chacun. c) La gestion interactionnelle de la confidence L'élément qui retiendra ici mon attention est relatif au silence. On remarque, dans certaines confidences du corpus, un allongement des silences du locuteur, qui peut être mis en relation avec son effort pour mettre en discours quelque chose d'aussi indicible que'des ,impressions'. Ces silences s'associent à un mouvement,d'avancée/recul' dans le jeu des auto-corrections et auto-reformulations présent dans certains exemples (Traverso 1996)11. Le phénomène le plus frappant, attesté celui-là dans toutes les confidences du corpus, est relatif au silence du confident. On peut en effet observer, en particulier dans la phase d'exposition, sa très faible participation verbo-vocale12. Son silence n'est bien sûr pas absolu, il produit des régulateurs, il arrive même qu'il pose des questions d'explicitation ou propose des hétéro-reformulations. Mais au total, ses interventions sont extrêmement réduites. Ce qui semble particulier et remarquable est le fait que cette retenue du confident ne pose pas de problème dans l'interaction. Exemple: Confidence concernant les problèmes professionnels de L (ses relations avec sa responsable de formation, Caria). L - elle nous cherche'... elle nous cherche,... elle nous trouve'(2"2) L-moi j'ai rien dit aujourd'hui... (1"6)... j'ies ai laissé parler (1"4) et puis à 11 heures j'ai dit allez (2") ciao bye tout le monde... j'en ai marre d'ces rapports d'agressivité (3"4) j'devais raméner les garçons à la gare et puis j'sais pas c'qui ont fabriqué:: ça s'engueulait et tout., j'ai dit allez ciao (l"6)j'suis rentrée faire mon ménage (6") L - Caria a la migrai::ne' 'depuis une semaine

On voit que les confidents (il s'agit d'une conversation à 4 participants) restent silencieux, même lors des pauses13 du locuteur indiquées en gras (très longues pour un échange conversationnel) où l'on s'attendrait à une intervention ou à un régulateur de leur part. Leur silence n'est pas interprété comme une marque de désintérêt (ce qui serait sans doute le cas au cours d'un simple récit conversationnel)

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mais au contraire comme l'indice d'un fort engagement dans l'interaction. C'est particulièrement frappant dans celles des confidences où la très forte récurrence des auto-reformulations augmente d'autant la fréquence et la durée des pauses intra-tours. Il arrive dans ces cas que la non-parole l'emporte sur la parole, mais cela ne change rien quant au silence du confident, qui abandonne le silence au locuteur comme il lui abandonne la parole: L - alors j'sais pas... [...]... par rapport à Fred... euh... ça m'était pas v'nu à l'esprit quoi ...(2"47)... alors j'sais pas... (1"44)... disons que quandj'l'ai ram'né... ouais etben après j'étais emmerdée... en feit j'me suis dit... mais p't'êt j'ai... enfin dans l'sens où:... ben enfin non j'tais pas... j'me suis dit:... euh... p'têt... 'fin euh... j'avais pas d'raison euh... (3"75)... ben:... j'me suis posé des questions quoi... j'me suis dit... bon enfin qu'est-c' qui fabrique... est-c' que... puis après j'me suis dit d'toute façon... euh... c'est pareil lui il est dans une situation qui... (1"63)... bon qui est pas bien; claire en feit et puis euh... (4"18)... siidécidederev'niràLyonir'viendraàLyon C-hmhm L - enfin tu vois (2"75) L - ouais j'me suis dit ça quoi.. (3"00)... c'était bizarre... c'était... ouais c'était assez curieux... enfin [...]

Il faut se garder des généralisations hâtives, mais on peut risquer l'hypothèse que ce phénomène n'est pas sans parenté avec l'émotion qui saisit le ,simple' participant à une conversation ordinaire (littéralement le .saisissement'), lorsqu'il comprend qu'il est en train d'être ,pris' dans une confidence. L'objectif de cet article était de poser les premiers jalons d'une étude des émotions dans la confidence. On a proposé un cadre d'analyse, en distinguant différents niveaux pour l'observation des émotions dans la séquence, en particulier en différenciant l'évocation d'une émotion ,apportée avec lui' par un participant (qui peut chercher à la faire surgir chez son partenaire) de la manifestation des émotions provoquées dans l'ici et maintenant de l'échange par le fait même d'être engagé dans cette tâche discursive et interlocutive. Puis on a identifié certains comportements interactifs qui peuvent être associés à différents niveaux de la dimension émotionnelle de l'interaction. Plus globalement, la question qui se trouve posée par ces premières observations est celle des outils d'analyse articulant la prise en compte des phénomènes d'émotion et de figuration: on voit en effet à quel point les notions de „menace", „anti-menace" et „préservation des faces" risquent de conduire à éluder la question des dimensions émotionnelles de l'interaction. La séquence de confidence peut sans doute permettre d'avancer sur ce point, puisque son analyse conduit à admettre une suspension et un renversement partiel du fonctionnement ordinaire de la figuration.

Notes 1. Opération qui constitue, pour Rimé (1993), une forme particulière de traitement d'informations émotionnellement chargées, par la mise en discours. La notion de partage social des émotions est beaucoup plus large que celle de .confidence' ou de .dévoilement de soi', dans la mesure où s'y trouvent associées des évocations artistiques, littéraires ou autres. 2. Voir l'article de Jefferson/Lee (1981) consacré au rejet du conseil au cours des séquences de ,troubles-telling'. 3. Je désigne par .locuteur' (L dans les transcriptions) le participant qui se confie et par .confident' (C) son interlocuteur. Le choix de cette paire n'est pas réellement satisfaisant puisqu'il semble retirer au confident le

Quelques phénomènes liés à la gestion des émotions dans les séquences de „ confidence conversationnelle " statut de locuteur, ce qui n'est évidemment pas le cas. Il vise seulement à combler l'absence de symétrique pour ,confident'. ,Confiant/confident' aurait été possible, mais les connotations de l'adjectif .confiant' dissimulent le participe présent. 4. Signalons cependant le cas où les confidences sont simplement faites pour donner une certaine image valorisante de soi-même, sur ce point, voir Derlega, ibid. 5. Comme l'explique Cosnier dans sa définition („affects phasiques le plus souvent subliminaires et difficiles à nommer et, parfois, (des) micro-émotions identifiables" 1994, 81), ces affects, très souvent, ne sont pas perçus par les sujets, et ce sont des analyses instrumentales (neuro-physiologiques) qui permettent de les saisir. 6. Ce corpus est présent, en détails, dans Traverso 1996. 7. Ce travail s'inscrit dans le cadre du programme de recherche „Interaction et Emotion" du GRIC (Groupe de Recherche sur les Interactions Communicatives), Lyon 2-CNRS. 8. Sur les récits de la confidence, voir Traverso 1994. 9. Eléments essentiels pour la lecture des transcriptions: chevauchements indiqués par [ (un crochet au début du tour interrupteur dont le démarrage est indiqué par un crochet dans le tour en cours); allongement indiqué par les deux points (:); intonation montante (/), descendante (\); intonation fortement montante (t); pauses très brèves ..., au dessus d'une sec. elles sont chronométrées et leur durée est indiquée entre parenthèses; l'emphatisation d'une prononciation est indiquée par des capitales; [...] indique une coupure due au transcripteur. 10. Remarquons par exemple qu'il s'agit, dans les deux cas, de compliments (.caresses' pour la face). 11. Mouvement qui n'est pas sans rapport avec les fuites hors de la confidence décrites ci-dessus. 12.11 convient de le préciser. Les enregistrements sur lesquels je travaille sont uniquement ,audio'. Il est fort probable que les postures et le regard sont essentiels dans l'expression de l'engagement du confident. 13. Se pose en effet la question de l'attribution de ces temps d'absence de parole: reviennent-ils au locuteur ou au confident. Dans l'analyse proposée ici, ils sont .donnés' au locuteur par le confident, ils ne sont donc pas, à proprement parler, des ,gaps'.

Références Adam, J.-M. ( 1985), Le texte narratif, Paris: Nathan. Auchlin, A. (1990), Analyse du discours et bonheur conversationnel, Cahiers de Linguistique Française 11, SUSIS. Auchlin, A. (1991), Le bonheur conversationnel: fondements, enjeux et domaines, Cahiers de Linguistique Française 12, 103-125. Brès, J. (1994), La narrativité, Louvain: Duculot. Cosnier, J. (1994), Psychologie des émotions et des sentiments, Paris: Retz. Derlega, J./Wilson, M./Chaikin, A. L. (1976), Friendship and Disclosure Reciprocity, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 34/4, 578-582. Derlega, J./Metts, S./Petronio, S./Margulis, S. (1993), Self Disclosure, Newbuiy Park, Londres, New Delhi, Sage. Feriand, A. (1991), La confidence: des relations au réseau, Sociétés contemporaines 5, 7-21. Goffinan, E. (1973), La mise en scène de la vie quotidienne, 1 et 2, Paris: Minuit. Jefferson, G. (1978), Sequential Aspects of Storytelling in Conversation, In: Schenkein, J., Studies in the Organization of Conversational Interaction, Londres: Academic Press, 191-221. Jefferson, G./Lee, J. (1981), The Rejection of Advice: Managing the Problematic Convergence of a ,Troublestelling' and a .Service Encounter', Journal of Pragmatics 5, 399-422. Labov, W./Waletzky, J. (1966), Narrative Analysis: Oral Versions of Personal Experience, In: Helm, J. (ed.), Essays on the Verbal and Visual Arts, Seattle: University of Washington Press. Pearce, W. B./Sharp, S. M. (1973), Self-Disclosing Communication, The Journal of Communication 23, 409- 425. Rimé, B. (1993), Le partage social des émotions, In: Rimé, B./Scherer, K. (1993), Les émotions, Neuchâtel, Paris: Delachaux et Niestlé, 271-303. Tannen, D. (1989), Talking Voices, Cambridge University Press. Traverso, V. (1994), Les récits de la confidence, In: Brès, J. (1994), Le récit oral, Praxiling, Montpellier, 227-239. Traverso, V. (1996), La conversation familière, Lyon: PUL.

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Jacqueline Zwobada Rosei Difficultés de communication chez l'enfant: dialogue finalisé, trilogue et énonciation. Méthodologie d'analyse d'un corpus vidéo

1. Problématique 1.1 Le corpus 1.2 Les bases de l'analyse 2. Lecture des corpus et interprétation 2.1 Lecture du premier corpus 2.2 Lecture du second corpus 3. Discussion 3.1 Premier corpus 3.2 Deuxième corpus Références Annexe

1.

Problématique

Nous nous proposons d'illustrer l'importance des composantes non-verbales d'une interaction thérapeutique à trois participants, et les fonctions de ces participants lorsqu'il y a des difficultés de communication. 1.1

Le corpus (Annexe)

La sélection des enfants repose sur la différence de leur relation au langage ce qui permet d'avoir des corpus contrastés: Julien 4 ans 1 mois, ne peut guère parler: il est Infirme Moteur Cérébral, hémiplégique, avec atteinte de la sphère bucco-pharyngée. Sa famille supporte mal son handicap (Zwobada Rosel 1994B). Victor, lui, ne veut guère parler; il a 4 ans 10 mois, et sa prise en charge est dans le cadre d'une guidance parentale. Ils ont l'un et l'autre des problèmes d'autonomisation. Le choix de la séance a été déterminé par le questionnement du praticien qui y a participé. Il met donc au premier plan un point de vue psycho-affectif qui repose sur une relation établie antérieurement et par là, l'implicite de la situation. Le premier corpus illustre l'étayage (Bruner 1983) du point de vue du rapport entre le nonverbal et la mise en mots. Le questionnement porte sur le thème central de l'interaction considéré comme message adressé au tiers.

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Le deuxième corpus pose la question des modalités de l'étayage des adultes présents, dans ce dialogue inégal (François 1991): étayage et/ou contre-étayage, du côté du père et du côté de la thérapeute. (Zwobada Rosel 1994A)

1.2

Les bases de l'analyse

Les références théoriques de l'analyse de ces corpus se situent dans l'approche contextuelle de l'interprétation de Slama Cazacu (1961), avec intégration de l'approche du non verbal de Cosnier (1980; 1982) dans le modèle, cadre général pour une analyse du trilogue inspirée de la démarche de l'équipe de Lyon (Kerbrat Orecchionni/Plantin 1996). L'analyse linguistique (François 1984, 1993), autre point de vue sur le corpus, est présentée par ailleurs (Zwobada 1996). L'INTERPRETATION repose sur la prise en compte de contextes emboîtés à différents niveaux, implicite et explicite. Le CONTEXTE IMPLICITE est particulièrement important dans une situation thérapeutique, du fait de l'âge de l'enfant et de sa problématique. Il y a MÉDIATION, nécessité d'un support pour l'échange verbal, support qui pose ses propres règles, que ce soit dans la lecture d'images (2e corpus) ou dans le jeu (1er corpus) par exemple. Il y a également, un espace de REPRÉSENTATIONS SOCIO-CULTURELLES qui implique de l'attendu, des félicitations face à la réussite d'un jeu par la grand-mère (1er corpus), le désir du père de voir parler son fils et de l'y aider (2e corpus). Le cadre de vie familiale implique une construction de RELATIONS INTERPERSONNELLES avec également de l'attendu mais aussi de l'inattendu pour qu'un changement puisse se manifester par rapport aux interactions précédentes. Dans un cadre thérapeutique, il y a L'HISTOIRE de ces relations interpersonnelles, avec les parents comme avec le thérapeute, ce que chacun „sait" de l'autre, au delà de l'ici et maintenant de l'échange, dans ce qui a pu être „dit" en dehors de sa présence, comme dans la mise enjeu de processus le plus souvent inconscients. Au delà du CONTEXTE EXPLICITE qui intègre au contexte VERBAL les AUXILIAIRES GESTUELS qui lui sont corrélés, le cadre interactif comme espace d'échange intervient également. Comme dans toute interaction, il y a au départ un CONTRAT DE COMMUNICATION qui s'établit entre les interlocuteurs. Ainsi dans un cadre thérapeutique, il y a attente d'un changement chez l'enfant de la part de deux des pôles, les parents et le thérapeute, mais cette attente implique dans l'esprit du thérapeute, un changement de contrat qui ne peut se dire. Ce sont les parents qui formulent la demande pour l'enfant, qui parlent pour lui, et même si le thérapeute essaie de le solliciter, les parents font écran et de ce fait il ne peut guère répondre. Or le thérapeute souhaite que l'enfant puisse parler de lui-même, pour lui-même, à quelqu'interlocuteur que ce soit. Le dire dès le départ, verrouillerait la situation. C'est pourquoi le travail avec les parents présents, fait partie de la démarche: les parents parlent ainsi pour l'enfant au départ, et à l'arrivée chacun a trouvé sa place, l'enfant parle pour lui.

Difficultés de communication chez l'enfant: dialogue finalisé, trilogue et énonciation

L'analyse du

DÉROULEMENT DES ÉCHANGÉS

309

va donc être en étroite relation avec les facteurs

situationnels proprement dit qui déterminent en partie les

PLACES ET RÔLES

d'un point de vue

interactionnel ou psycholangagier: l'activité support entraîne un commentaire d'action (1er corpus), le livre, des questions pour soutenir l'étayage d'une conduite de récit (2e corpus). Lorsque l'enfant joue avec l'adulte, ce qui se passe fréquemment, le rôle distribué est Joué" en fonction de l'attente sociale mais aussi de l'interprétation qui permettra que quelque chose d'inattendu se passe, le thérapeute restant également dans son rôle de spécialiste du langage quand il explicite un contexte verbal ou situationnel par des commentaires „hors jeu" etc... Ce qu'on observe dans les extraits de corpus présentés relève plutôt de la fonction métalinguistique, dans un jeu entre reformulations et déplacements. L'analyse des

MODES DE PARTICIPATION

va devoir tenir compte de données autres que seulement

verbales. D'une part, la variété des actes réalisés ne rend pas compte de l'efficacité du dialogue, nous avons posé le problème de l'analyse d'un dysfonctionnement possible par ailleurs (Zwobada Rosel 1995). D'autre part, les enchaînements se réalisent dans un transcodage qui implique l'interprétation, par celui qui met en mot, de ce qu'il observe, et non, seulement, de ce qui se dit, rapporté à ce qu'il sait d'interactions précédentes. Cette

OBSERVATION

prend en compte le „corps communiquant". Dans cette approche, Cosnier

fait référence à la contribution sémantique du corps à l'énoncé et à sa participation à l'énonciation dans l'interprétation d'un „énoncé total": - le corps intervient dans la construction de l'énoncé verbal en particulier par la participation de la

MIMO-GESTUALITE:

dire „non" de la tête (dans le deuxième corpus), mais aussi désigner l'objet

en accompagnant le geste d'un déictique (cf „là" dans le premier corpus, la fonction de désignation étant alors portée par le regard). - le corps participe à l'énonciation en particulier par la contribution de la gestualité à la SYNCHRONISATION INTERACTIONNELLE

de la

DISPOSITION PSYCHO-AFFECTIVE

mais surtout, dans ce type de corpus, dans ce qui se manifeste entre les partenaires de l'interaction. Son analyse repose sur une

interprétation globale de différents indices (position, postures, déplacements du buste, de la tête, des mains, du regard, indices physiques aménageant la distance). Mais il faut tenir compte également des déplacements effectués dans le dialogue verbal, des changements de registre de voix, d'intensité etc... dans la mesure où chacun de ces types de déplacements participe à la régulation de l'échange comme à la construction de la signification dans l'interaction à deux comme à trois partenaires. Citons pour illustrer l'apport du non verbal, ce qui se marque de façon la plus évidente dans les deux corpus présentés, comme cadre physique même de l'interaction: les têtes à la même hauteur, le respect d'une distance intermédiaire entre „intime" et „personnelle" par la thérapeute. Pour le premier des corpus, on remarque l'attention portée à la gestualité fortuite de l'enfant pour introduire des gestes conventionnels dans le cadre de routines culturelles (bravo, les marionnettes). Dans le deuxième, on remarque plus particulièrement l'adaptation des questions aux réactions de malaise ou de retrait de l'enfant.

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2. Lecture des corpus et interprétation La DELIMITATION des corpus et leur SEGMENTATION reposent sur une interprétation globale de ce qui se passe et s'effectue en fonction du questionnement du praticien: que s'est-il passé à ce moment là de la prise en charge qui puisse éclairer son évolution. Elle se définit en trois temps, la mise en place de la situation (comparaison pour le 1er, énonciation pour le 2e), échange verbal proprement dit qui porte sur l'identité pour le 1er, et le récit pour le second, le passage à une autre activité qui marque la fin de l'échange proprement dit, les marionnettes pour le 1er, la lecture d'un code sémiologique pour le second.

2.1

Lecture du premier corpus

L'enfant est à l'origine des énoncés interprétatifs de l'adulte. On en donnera deux exemples. Ex: „là, là et là".

La thérapeute effectue un transcodage qui précise la référence d'une désignation de l'enfant qui corrèle la main et le regard au déictique „là". Elle reformule la comparaison, indiquée par un déplacement de mode de désignation associé au connecteur „et". Ex: „c'est beau".

L'interprétation qui apparaît dans les reformulations de la thérapeute qui accompagnent cette évaluation de l'enfant, s'effectue en fonction d'un savoir partagé non-dit, non dicible. L'enfant change d'interlocuteur en introduisant le tiers. La thérapeute reformule ce qu'elle veut bien entendre en terme d'identité. Le MODE DE PARTICIPATION est spécifique d'un fonctionnement dyadique, de par la dimension psycho-affective et la connivence qui se manifestent, et l'accord de l'enfant aux reformulations.

2.2

Lecture du deuxième corpus

On quitte le non-dit, non dicible sur le corps handicapé pour étudier un corpus où les relations interpersonnelles se sont construites sur un mode plus banal. Mais dans l'un et l'autre cas, on est face à un problème de communication. Il ne suffit pas de dire pour que les choses se fassent, le changement va passer par celui des relations interpersonnelles et se manifester à ce niveau. L'enfant va passer du non-verbal (objet/thème désigné par le regard, exprimé par un signe de tête, avec variations de la voix, de l'articulation) au verbal intelligible et attendu. Le père va utiliser non seulement le verbal, par ses injonctions, mais son propre corps, en le

Difficultés de communication chez I'enfant: dialogue finalisé, trilogue et énonciation

311

retenant, en formant comme une „niche", pour que l'enfant soit en situation de produire un énoncé verbal autrement qu'en répétition. La thérapeute va le guider pas à pas dans une lecture d'images qui n'est pas seulement un transcodage du dessiné au verbal, mais une mise en place d'une conduite de récit dans la distance que ses reformulations ou ses déplacements impliquent entre la propre histoire de l'enfant et l'histoire du livre. L'énonciation se marque comme processus à deux niveaux: - celui des conditions physiques de réalisation, - celui de différenciation de deux plans d'énonciation.

L'étayage du père serait „de" l'énonciation et de la thérapeute „dans" l'énonciation.

3.

Discussion

On rappelle les points problématiques de l'interprétation de ces corpus pour nous interroger sur leur vérification: 3.1

Premier corpus

- le déplacement du thème sur les mains, - l'objet de l'évaluation „c'est beau", - qui parle pour qui? de l'enfant, de la thérapeute alors que nous avions posé que l'enfant est l'initiateur et le destinataire la grand-mère. Le contexte verbal antérieur et l'implicite de l'histoire des relations personnelles confirment l'interprétation de la thérapeute, de même que la suite de la séquence: - un travail sur le schéma corporel et la reconnaissance des mains l'a précédée, - on observe la libération temporaire des contraintes neurologiques dans le plaisir du jeu (cf. marionnettes) et la reconnaissance de la thérapeute qui se manifeste par le fonctionnement dyadique de connivence (dimension psycho-affective). 3 .2

Deuxième corpus

La question concerne l'interprétation de l'étayage: étayage ou contre-étayage? Pour celui du père, il s'agit de la façon dont il „contient" physiquement l'enfant et de la valeur de ses injonctions: favorise-t-il la communication? La réponse se trouve dans le point de vue de la caméra sur leur proximité: il y a un espace libre entre eux, on remarque également une caresse fortuite. L'étayage réussit. En effet, la main quitte la bouche ce qui a permis qu'elle s'oriente vers le livre, et que la bouche soit libérée pour la parole

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La thérapeute p o s e un cadre favorable, relance l'enfant quand il s'éloigne, ne le presse pas vraiment, mais on pourrait penser que le croisement des deux plans d'énonciation représente une surcharge cognitive. Cependant elle donne des outils linguistiques pour marquer la référenciation en s'appuyant sur la différenciation pour répondre à la question fondamentale dans ces thérapies: qui est qui? et son corrélé implicite, qui suis-je?

Références Bruner, J. (1983), Le développement de l'enfant, Savoir faire, Savoir dire, PUF. Cosnier, J. (1980), Langage et corps dans la communication, In: Thérapie psychomotrice, 46. Cosnier, J. (1982), Les voies du langage, Dunod. François, F. (1993), Pratiques de l'oral, Nathan. François et al. (1984), Conduites linguistiques chez le jeune enfant, PUF. François et al. (1991), La communication inégale, Delachaux et Niestlé. Kerbrat-Orecchioni, C./Plantin, C. (1995), Le trilogue, Lyon: PUL. Slama Cazacu, T. (1961), Langage et contexte, Mouton et Co's-Gravenhage. Zwobada Rosel, J. (1995), Un dialogue étant ce qu'il est, peut-on parler de dysfonctionnement dans un dialogue, communication in Conférence on Teaching Conversation I.A.D.A. Bologne 1992, in Glossa 49, 28-36. Zwobada Rosel, J. (1994A), Dialoguer avec un jeune enfant en orthophonie. Enjeux pragmatiques et/ou affectifs de la communication, in Perspectives Psychiatriques 43, 166-170. Zwobada Rosel, J. (1994B) Déglutition et affectivité, in Rééducation Orthophonique 176, 435-449. Zwobada Rosel, J. (1996), Expression et communication: jeu entre verbal et non verbal dans des dialogues thérapeutiques, In: R . 0 187, 307-335.

Annexe: CORPUS C O R P U S JJ. L E S D E U X M A I N S (4 ans 1 mois) ( l ' 1 5 " )

L e début de la séquence retenue dans le montage se situe lorsque la comparaison s'effectue avec le modèle pour se déplacer ensuite de l'objet support du jeu, au corps propre de l'enfant (représentation). Elle se termine lorsque s'installe un jeu socialisé.

Segmentation: 1. Mise en place de la situation de comparaison 1.1 Fin de la réalisation du puzzle 1.2 Disposition côte à côte du chien et de son modèle 2. Déplacement de la comparaison sur les mains 3. Introduction de la grand-mère 3.1 Sollicite son avis sur sa réussite 3.2 Reformulation en termes d'altérité/identité (condition de l'identification)

Difficultés de communication chez l'enfant: dialogue finalisé, trilogue et énonciation thérapeute

JJ

313

GM

1. 1.1

1.2

Ah ah., et voilà! et bien bravo! On voit la tête du chien avec son oreille Et voilà! Le bout du nez! ((frottement sur tapis: il déplace le jeu)) (pose sa tête sur ses mains) (regarde la boite, ses mains) Qu'est-c'que t'en penses? (léger bruit de claquement) Bravo ((les deux applaudissent)) T'as tout à fait réussi! (demi-sourire) Là (montre alternativement le puzzle et la boite) hm là et là (les 2 mains se rejoignent il joue avec elles) ah! i sont pareils! (frappe deux fois) que tes deux mains Et oui! Tu as deux mains pareilles, comme là y a un chien et là y a un autre chien! Et oui! oui... (soupire, frappe la gauche de la droite; ferme les yeux)

3. oeda] (se tourne vers sa G-M)

3.1

Tu vois mamie hein comme JJ a deux mains qui se ressemblent [hm] très très fort

(hoche la tête) (position de „penseur" montre le puzzle en bougeant le petit doigt) [abo] là [doemê]

3.2

quoi? les deux mêmes, oui, comme les deux mains

[doemè(m)] hm (hoche la tête) [doemè] (regarde sa main D,Une main, l'autre main, tourner)

Tu sais faire les marionnettes?.. Regarde JJ (Autre séquence)...

la fait

Jacqueline Zwobada Rosei

314 C O R P U S Vi B D (4 ans 10 mois) ( 3 ' 2 5 " )

La segmentation en saynète renvoie au contexte situationnel. Dans un premier temps on oppose la mise en place de la situation de communication (SO d'un point de vue énonciatif) à la séquence de saynètes (Sn) où l'objet du discours est la construction d'une référence à partir de la „lecture" d'une séquence d'images. La numérotation est déterminée par la centration du travail sur l'une de ces images: in „une journée à deux" (p. 42-43) extraites de „Neuf mois pour naître" de Catherine Dolto, Hatier 1985. Père

Thérapeute

Vi

S0Arrête! Allez Vi! Tu es grand tu vois! Et dis donc! Là tu fais vraiment l'bébé! Reste là! Tu vois papa a tout posé ici, donc il est là Hop! et on va r'garder ensemble on va r'garder avec papa. Explique lui puisque tu as r'gardé avec maman, Alors explique-lui qu'est c'qu'il y a dans cette histoire SlÇà c'est un drôle de truc... (, . .lebébé)(avalé, superposé) Avec qui elle est maman? La maman, là dans l'image, elle est avec qui? Elle est où? Tu as vu? Elle est dans un lit, avec qui elle est? SILENCE Avec le bébé!... Mais i sont pas tout seuls, avec qui elle est encore?... Et là, qui c'est?... C'est l'même? Non!... Ça c'est l'docteur! Et ça, qui c'est?

(regard en dessous père? Sourire)

(mvmt bouche) dénégation (série nez) papa (chuchoté)

Et oui... c'est l'papa qui est avec elle... S2Et après, qu'est-c'qu'elle va faire la dame /à?.. se laver (chuchoté) Elle va se laver!.

315

Difficultés de communication chez l'enfant: dialogue finalisé, trilogue et énonciation S3Et puis... qu'est-c'qu'elle va faire Ui?... Oh! J'crois bien qu'c'est l'même là sauf qu'il est, qu'il est allé s'coiffer entre les deux. Hein! Qui c'est çui-là, c'est aussi l'papa? acquiescement Et qu'est-c'qu'ils font tous les deux? I déjeunent!

i déjeunent (mi-voix)

S4Et alors là\ Oh dis donc, qu'est-c'qu'elle a l'air pressée hein! Où est-c'qu'elle va? Elle va chez l'docteur Et puis on dirait qu'elle est en retard Elle doit avoir un rendez-vous (mime) Et puis euh

(souffle) (chuchote?)

(souffle) Faut pas s'perdre hein! (Rire) pour être à l'heure comme tout à l'heure!

(regard vers la caméra)

S5Et puis là, qu'est-c'qu'elle va faire? Ben làj'sais pas à son bureau (chuchoté) Mets pas ton doigt dans la bouche! (avalé)

Quoi? à son bureau (ralenti)

J'sais pas... J'ai pas compris Elle est assise quelque part, Ah!... à son travail Parle pas avec ton doigt dans la bouche! Ah, dis donc, elle est à son travail! R'garde c'qu'elle fait, elle fait des dessins! S6 Et ici Ah ça c'est intéressant tiens! On dirait qu'elle est avec une copine, une amie! Qu'est-c'qu'i font, qu'est-c'qu'elles font ensemble? SILENCE Oh!

(se penche, puis recule Le buste)

Et alors? Tu m'as dit tout à l'heure ici, Qu'est-c'qu'elles font toutes les deux là? Elles parlent! Les dames, ensemble, ça parle. Et puis, qu'est-c'qu'elles font ensemble, on dirait bien qu'elles mangent.

(mouvements de bouche)

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Et là elle est où? Elle est chez elle? Non! bien sûr, où est-c'qu'elle est?

Sur la route, et alors qu'est-c'qu'il y a?... pourquoi on a fait comme ça des p'tits traits?...

(dénégation) (main vers le livre ouvert) à la route...

Christian Hudelot L'aide à la mise en mots de petits groupes de jeunes enfants „lisant" une affiche à la crèche et à la maternelle, ou Qu'est-ce qu'un „étayage langagier"?

1. Problématique de l'étayage 2. Langage et étayage 3. Lire une affiche en petits groupes de cinq enfants 4. Déclencheurs 5. Retour au corpus et nécessité d'une analyse dynamique 6. Analyse 7. Discussion Références

S'il est généralement admis, comme l'écrit Vygotski, que „sous la direction et avec l'aide de quelqu'un, l'enfant peut toujours faire plus et résoudre des problèmes plus difficiles que lorsqu'il agit tout seul" on peut, comme l'auteur de Pensée et langage, „aller plus loin et chercher la cause de ce phénomène" (Vygotski 1985, 270), mais on peut également, en tant que linguiste, chercher à préciser comment fonctionnent ces types particuliers de dialogues asymétriques dans lesquels un adulte aide un ou plusieurs enfants à s'acquitter d'une tâche, en particulier lorsque cette tâche est principalement verbale.

1. Problématique de l'étayage La métaphore de l'étayage, en tant qu'elle renvoie à un dispositif provisoire permettant la construction d'un édifice, est particulièrement bienvenue pour désigner l'activité par laquelle un adulte soutient un enfant dans la réalisation d'une tâche qu'il ne sait pas encore réaliser seul. On ne s'étonnera donc pas de lui voir bénéficier d'une popularité croissante, non seulement dans le domaine de la psychologie développementale ou des différentes didactiques, mais également dans le champ de l'acquisition du langage. La métaphore a été utilisée par Bruner principalement dans le cadre de l'interaction de tutelle (Wood, Ross, et Bruner 1976) et à l'occasion de réflexions sur la théorie de Vygotski (Bruner et Hickmann 1983). Dans sa définition brunérienne l'étayage est présenté comme un système de support fourni par l'adulte à travers le discours, ou la communication plus généralement [...] „à travers lequel l'adulte restreint la complexité de la tâche permettant à l'enfant de résoudre des problèmes qu'il ne peut accomplir tout seul" (Bruner et Hickmann 1983, 288). Néanmoins cette notion, reprise par la linguistique, acquiert une dimension beaucoup plus large, ainsi, pour F. François (1988, 17) „l'étayage n'est pas autre chose que la distance même entre la langue de l'adulte et celle de l'enfant".

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Sans entrer plus avant dans le détail de la discussion, on se propose de regrouper autour de cinq acceptions principales les sens que peut prendre la notion d'étayage. Pour le détail de la présentation, on renvoie à C. Hudelot/M.-T. Vasseur (1997). i) L'étayage comme réalisation contrôlée d'un programme préétabli C'est en fait une définition possible qui ressort de l'article de Bruner sur le rôle de l'activité de tutelle. Le rôle du tuteur fit l'objet d'une convention préalable. L fut demandé à l'adulte compétent de „permettre à chaque enfant de faire aussi bien qu'il lui était possible". Mais on sait aussi qu'il n'y a pas nécessairement identité entre rôle attribué et rôle effectué. On renvoie entre autres à Verba et Winnykamen (1992). Parler de programme ne dispense donc pas d'une analyse des conduites effectivement réalisées. ii) L'étayage comme „matrice" En un autre sens, on peut parler d'étayage, dans une acception fréquente, lorsque l'activité acquise sert de cadre au développement ou à l'apprentissage d'une conduite nouvelle. C'est le cas par exemple lorsque l'on affirme que dans ses aspects développementaux, la communication verbale est étayée par les communications corporelles et vocales. On retrouve ici l'idée qu'une conduite est dérivée et s'autonomise d'une autre conduite avec laquelle elle entretenait des relations de contiguïté. iii) L'étayage comme déclencheur d'activité H me semble que l'on a affaire à une troisième conception de l'étayage quand on le ramène à l'activité de l'interlocuteur dans l'activation de la Zone de proche développement. L'étayage est considéré avant tout comme un déclencheur d'activité. Il permet de faire à plusieurs ce que l'on n'aurait pas fait seul. Dans ce cas, pour que l'étayage fonctionne, il faut que l'étayé fasse montre d'une capacité interprétative du discours (ou du silence de l'autre): capacité interprétative qui repose non seulement sur la compréhension des termes du message qui lui est adressé, mais plus globalement sur l'interprétation du message au regard de la situation d'ensemble dans laquelle il prend une signification concrète. Autrement dit, l'étayé doit déjà savoir quelque chose sur ce qu'il a effectué pour profiter de l'aide qui lui est apportée. Ce qui fait dire à Bruner que pour que la tutelle soit efficace, il faut que la compréhension du problème précède la production de sa solution. iv) Etayage global et étayage local Si l'on s'accorde à reconnaître la nécessité de dissocier un niveau local et un niveau global de l'étayage, des divergences apparaissent aussi bien dans la dénomination de ces différents niveaux que par rapport aux phénomènes dont les termes de la distinction sont censés rendre compte. Cette dichotomie recouvre en partie le fait que l'étayage est un processus cognitif qui prend place dans une relation émotionnelle et affective.

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v) Un mouvement dialogique parmi d'autres La précédente dichotomie insistait sur le caractère global du rôle de l'autre dans l'activité dialogique. Il est certain alors que l'on risque, en identifiant effet dialogique en général et conduite langagière particulière, de vider de son sens la notion d'étayage. On peut au contraire considérer qu'il s'agit d'un mouvement discursif particulier, spécifique ou non d'une situation dialogique particulière.

2. Langage et étayage Ce que l'on va appeler étayage langagier dépend largement de la conception que l'on se fait de la langue, du langage, ou de la communication verbale. Il est certain que si l'on considère la langue uniquement comme un objet formel (donc bien ou mal formé, sinon formulé) on ne considérera comme procédures étayantes que celles qui visent à une clarification de la formulation. En revanche, si l'on considère le langage comme lieu de la circulation du sens en pas seulement d'expression de la forme, on verra un étayage dans le fait même que quelque chose peut être signifié pour un interlocuteur donné par rapport à un objet donné. Enfin, si l'on se situe dans une perspective communicative, on tiendra également compte de la valeur communicativo-évaluative du message dans sa situation d'énonciation. En ce qui concerne la situation de tutelle, il est important d'attirer l'attention sur un certain nombre de caractéristiques qui distinguent la tâche de résolution de problème telle qu'elle se présente dans les résolutions de tâches pratiques et les situations d'élaboration discursive. Dans ce dernier cas, l'adulte ne connaît pas nécessairement par avance le produit fini: Tout au plus peut-on dire que celui-ci doit s'inscrire dans un type de jeu de langage - ou de genre discursif plus ou moins normé. D ne connaît pas non plus, dans leur intégralité, les différents moyens d'y parvenir, puisque il existe rarement, pour accomplir une tâche, une seule mise en mots possible. D'autre part dans le cas des activités verbales, le soutien de l'adulte peut se transformer en „contre étayage" du fait que toute prise de parole peut être considérée soit du point de vue de sa justesse pragmatico-énonciative, soit en raison de sa correction formelle. Et une intervention de l'adulte sur le second niveau peut avoir des répercussions sur le premier (François 1993). En outre se pose également la question de l'adéquation à la situation d'interlocution, et qui renvoie à la figure de la situation telle qu'elle se dessine dans l'interaction en cours. Enfin, on aurait tort d'oublier que bien qu'il n'ait pas nécessairement une maîtrise de la langue similaire à celle de l'adulte, l'enfant est souvent plus à l'aise dans certaines conduites langagières que nombre d'adultes, qu'il s'agisse d'inventer des histoires, de faire des poèmes ou de dire des mensonges. D est probable, pour le dire trop vite, que l'enfant a une relation privilégiée à l'imaginaire.

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3. Lire une affiche en petits groupes de cinq enfants Le choix de cette situation tient à une double exigence: Premièrement dans la mesure où le projet dans lequel s'inscrit ce travail vise la comparaison, il était préférable de choisir un objet du discours qui soit commun à l'ensemble des groupes. Par ailleurs, nous disposons pour les mêmes tranches d'âges de travaux portant sur la lecture d'image entre parents et enfants, à quoi nous pouvons espérer pouvoir comparer nos résultats. Deuxièmement, contrairement à une tâche purement verbale, ou au contraire à une activité nécessitant la manipulation d'objets, il nous a semblé que l'image focalisait le regard de l'enfant. En ce sens on peut dire que la tâche va entraîner un certain nombre de conduites qui lui seront spécifiques, soit dans les types de gestes (monstration, direction du regard) soit dans les types de mises en mots (présences de déictiques, „il est comme ça", „là bas", de verbes de perception „t'as vu", „dis regarde", „regardez le bien", ,j'ai vu [...]", etc. Par ailleurs, la dimension du groupe répond à une exigence à la fois pédagogique et pratique. D'un point de vue pratique, il n'était pas possible de demander aux puéricultrices et aux maîtresses de maternelle de travailler avec l'ensemble de leurs effectifs puisque ceux-ci auraient été d'une quinzaine dans les crèches et d'au moins 25 dans les classes d'école maternelle. On a donc opté pour un travail en petits groupes qui puissent êtrefilmésdans leur totalité. D'autre part, on sait la difficulté qu'ont les enfants à prendre part à une conversation dans la situation fortement concurrentielle que constitue le grand groupe. La réduction du groupe est donc une condition nécessaire pour augmenter le temps de parole théorique dont pourra disposer chaque enfant. Dans son ouvrage sur les pratiques du langage à l'école maternelle, Agnès Florin (1991, 214) préconise également d'homogénéiser les petits groupes conversationnels. S'ajoute à cela le fait que peu de travaux ont été fait sur des petits groupes d'enfants. Le plus souvent, l'idée que l'on se fait de la relation adulte enfant renvoie à des dyades enregistrées dans des situations naturelles, expérimentales ou aménagées. Plus rares sont, à notre connaissance, les travaux portant sur des groupes plus importants (à l'exception de Stambak et al. 1983; Florin, Braun-Lamesch et Bramaud du Boucheron 1985; Stambak, Sinclair (dir) 1990; Florin 1991; Simonpoli 1991).

4. Déclencheurs On a présenté l'étayage en stipulant qu'étaient étayants les énoncés de l'adulte susceptibles de permettre aux enfants de réaliser une tâche verbale. Dans la mesure où de nombreux énoncés de l'adulte embrayent sur ceux des enfants, il est nécessaire, pour comprendre l'activité pédagogique, d'identifier ceux des énoncés qui „déclenchent" une conduite verbale de l'adulte. Le terme de déclencheur n'est pas à prendre ici au sens de nécessité logique mais d'option possible dans l'orientation du dialogue. Cette perspective considère donc la triple relation conduite de l'enfant réaction contingente de l'adulte - réaction de l'enfant. Par ailleurs, les interventions des uns et des autres prennent pleinement sens dans un contexte qui dépasse les interventions locales. Ce peut être la séquence thématique, des moments différents de la relation du groupe à l'image, la séance en général.

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On se limitera ici aux conduites langagières qui ont trait à la description de l'image. On est conscient, ce faisant, de négliger, au moins momentanément, d'autres conduites verbales de l'adulte et corrélativement d'ignorer certains effets du discours magistral. Une analyse plus complète de ce corpus est en cours d'impression (cf. Hudelot 1997). Compte tenu que les interventions des interlocuteurs peuvent être initiatives, responsives, réactives ou additives; qu'elles peuvent être symétriques, complémentaires ou métadiscursives; et que la mise en mots catégorise d'une certaine façon l'objet du discours en le situant dans le monde de l'objet présent ou en proposant d'autres modes de donation du sens, on peut identifier un certain nombre de couples ou de triplets déclencheur —» intervention —> (réaction), relativement récurrents. Citons, à titre d'exemple: •- formulation peu compréhensible —» demande de reformulation - » reformulation PR-1

l'oiseau il avait des yeux [da] ra(d)io (désigne une radio-hibou).

M-l PR-2

l'oiseau quoi? il avait des yeux dans la radio

•- Message „attendu" —> reprise de la mise en mots ou acquiescement Es-3 M-5

bah. le cana rd. sur le dos du canard

•- désignation par un déictique —> demande de dénomination M-4 Es-3 M-5

elle a des feuilles sur le dos le dos de, sur quel dos bah. le cana:rd (sur le mode de l'évidence) sur le dos du canard

•- dénomination „ambiguë" - » demande de spécification PR-3 M-6 ?

il a des feuilles c'est des feuilles de quoi (sourire)

•- dénomination —» demande de description Ni-3 M-7 Ni-4 Es-6

(t'as vu) les champignons et qu'est-ce qu'ils ont les champignons des des ils ont des yeux le gros champignons (ils ont des yeux)

•- qualification —> demande de justification M-9 Ni-6 Ad-2 M-10 Es-8 M-ll Ni-7 Es-9

alors le loup, Estelle elle parle du loup, elle dit qu'il est méchant. Eh oui oui oh oui qu'est ce qu'il fait qu'est ce qu'il fait? bah le soleil il est en bas, là bas Qu'est ce qu'il fait le loup? i va manger l(e) canard même les feuilles, tout !

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D'autres relations déclencheurs —> interventions mériteraient d'être dégagées, mais on voulait surtout insister ici sur le fait que les questions de l'adulte, pour ne prendre qu'un seul exemple, doivent être interprétées dans leur relation aux différents discours antécédents. Une lecture séquentielle des dialogues ne peut donc être qu'un moment, peut-être nécessaire, mais non suffisant, de l'analyse. En revanche, on ne peut faire l'économie d'une approche qualitativement plus dynamique. On voit en particulier que tous les propos des enfants ne sont pas traités avec la même équité. D ne suffit pas, pour que les propos des enfants soient repris par l'adulte qu'ils soient en relation à l'image et soient formulés correctement. Encore faut-il qu'ils manifestent une certaine pertinence vis-à-vis du développement du dialogue en cours.

5. Retour au corpus et nécessité d'une analyse dynamique Ces conduites ne sont pas nécessairement spécifiques du dialogue pédagogique, même si elles sont plus courantes dans les dialogues asymétriques que dans la conversation entre pairs. D s'agit au mieux d'enchaînements entre propos des enfants et propos de l'adulte typiques de cette situation. On ne comprendrait toutefois pas leur mode de fonctionnement si l'on se contentait de les relever sans s'occuper de leur rôle dans le déroulement global de l'interaction. Autrement dit, le dialogue n'est pas composé uniquement de mouvements locaux, mais également de mouvements globaux. D'où la nécessité de conduire une étude dynamique des événements dialogiques, mais également celle de présenter des fragments de corpus d'une longueur suffisante. Nous ne donnerons que les extraits qui ont trait au même objet. Celui que les enfants et la maîtresse ont identifié comme „le canard", en nous limitant aux moments où il est question de ses „ailes". M = Maîtresse Ni = Niki: 3;9

PR-1 M-l PR-2 M-2 Ni-1 Es-1 Ni-2 M-3 Es-2 M-4 Es-3 M-5 Es-4 PR-3 M-6 ? ri l1 M-ll

Ad = Adrien;3;8 PR = Pierre Rémy: 4;0

Es = Estelle: 3;7 El = Elodie: 4;2

l'oiseau il avait des yeux da ra(d)io (désigne une radio-hibou). l'oiseau quoi? il avait des yeux dans la radio ouais il est co(mme) ça (désigne une oie-livre que les enfants appelleront canard dans la suite du dialogue) [lo kola] il a des feuilles sur le dos regarde les champiEstelle, vous avez entendu ce qu'elle a dit Estelle, qu'est ce que tu disais Estelle? elle a des feuilles sur le dos elle a des feuilles sur le dos, le dos de, sur quel dos bah. le cana:rd (sur le mode de l'évidence) sur le dos du canard feuille ! il a des feuilles c'est des feuilles de quoi (sourire) Qu'est ce qu'il fait le loup?

L'aide à la mise en mots de petits groupes de jeunes enfants „ lisant " Ni-7 Es-9 Es [...] M-49 El-2 M-50 Ni-24 Ad-16 M-51 El-3 Ad-17 Es-35 M-52 PR-20 Ad-18 M-53 Es-36 M-54 PR-21 Es-37 Ad-19 Es-38 M-55 Es-39 PR-22

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i va manger l(e) canard même les feuilles, tout ! oh il est drôle le musique, oh j'ai pas entendu Elodie le canard à des feuilles oui non non il a des plumes c'est un loup= =alors il a des plumes ou il a des feuilles il a des feuilles il a des feuilles même la des champignons vous les regardez les feuilles de: du canard le les autres canards ils ont des ailes oui là (en montrant le dessin) les autres canards ils ont des ailes et là ce sont ses ailes, qui sont des feuilles ouais (i) (peut/veut) voler et à quoi ça- i vous font penser les ses ailes justement ses ailes en feuille moi j'étais à côté du manège *pour voir les canard *c'est c'est petit (inaudible) (se tournant vers P.R.) mais moi j'ai fait du manège (inaudible) au jeu oùya des (chevals) c'était où ya d'autres animais (s'adresse à la maîtresse mais sa voix est couverte par celle d'Adrien) c'est pour voler, c'est pour voler en même temps ses ailes, mais avec ces ailes là (désignation du doigt) tu penses qu'il peut voler ben oui même les (oiseaux)

6. Analyse Parmi l'ensemble des énoncés proférés par l'adulte, il en est au moins de trois sortes: ceux qui valident l'énoncé de l'enfant (reprise, reformulation et acquiescement), ceux qui demandent une réparation, une reformulation de l'énoncé précédent et enfin ceux qui, tout en étant contingents aux énoncés des enfants, font progresser l'activité verbale. On pourrait être tenté de n'accorder de statut d'étayage qu'à ces derniers dans la mesure où ce sont eux qui permettent à l'enfant de produire un discours „élaboré" en ce qu'il présente une suite d'enchaînements qui lui confère une organisation similaire à ce qui sera plus tard le texte écrit (cf Es 45 Oh les champignons sont drôles —» M 60 alors les champignons sont drôles, pourquoi ils sont drôles ? —» Ad 22 parce que ils ont du blanc). Ici, on assiste me semble-t-il à un autre travail. Peut-être porte-t-il localement sur l'enseignement des suites d'enchaînement fortement codées (ce qui relève presque de la „grammaire" du texte) mais il vise surtout, me semble-t-il, à résoudre une énigme graphique (le codage des ailes-livre de l'oie). C'est d'ailleurs ce qui, par contraste avec d'autres situations au cours desquelles le soutien langagier de l'adulte sert uniquement à développer l'empan thématique, une spécificité de cette situation. Le discours de l'adulte présente ici un certain nombre de particularités. Tout d'abord il est remarquable que la maîtresse laisse le plus souvent les enfants s'exprimer. D'ailleurs dans l'ensemble ce sont eux qui apportent de nouveaux thèmes, même si l'adulte ne manque pas de sélectionner celles

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des productions enfantines qui, dans le déroulement de la séance, sont plus opportunes (Hudelot 1997). Puisque, même si l'on parle à plusieurs, on ne peut parler que d'une seule chose à la fois. Beaucoup d'énoncés de l'adulte apparaissent alors comme des focalisations thématiques et fonctionnent indéniablement comme des refus, ou plutôt, dans le déroulement du dialogue, comme des mises en attente de certaines thématiques. D'un point de vue plus global, on peut interpréter cette attitude comme facilitant une réunion du groupe autour d'un objet commun, sans être pour autant des enrôlements dans une tâche qui, en un sens, demeure implicite. On retrouve donc une conduite banale, sinon habituelle du discours magistral qui consiste à sélectionner les propos d'un seul enfant. Un premier objet donne lieu à un échange qui ne doit son relatif développement qu'à une difficulté de formulation, et la référence aux champignons est totalement ignorée. De façon générale, on peut noter que cette enseignante laisse passer les énoncés linguistiquement correctes mais sémantiquement bizarres ou opaques, surtout lorsqu'ils ne sont pas directement liés au dessin. L'adulte redonne donc la parole à un enfant sur un point particulier qui touche autant l'aspect central du réfèrent (il y a en fait sur le dessin deux acteurs principaux, un spectateur et divers témoins) que sur un double problème de formulation. D'une part la désignation du porteur de feuilles et d'autre part la spécification des dites feuilles. A ce point du dialogue, on peut ne voir dans les propos magistraux qu'une simple exigence d'explicitation n'ayant d'autre finalité qu'un contrôle du bagage lexical des enfants. Ce que corroborerait la fréquence de ce type de relation déclencheur —> étayage. Ce thème est abandonné au profit de la description du second personnage dont l'identification donne lieu à un long débat (cf. Hudelot 1997). Le „canard" ne sera à nouveau évoqué qu'à l'occasion de cette discussion. H ne réapparaîtra que dans la fin de l'extrait qui, après une focalisation de la maîtresse donne lieu à une brève discussion entre enfants sur le mode minimum Assertion —> Opposition - Contre assertion. C'est la maîtresse encore qui, tout en sélectionnant l'objet du discours (elle ignore le loup et les champignons) vient souligner le „conflit cognitif'. Elle accomplit alors un double mouvement. En un premier temps, elle fait admettre au groupe que ce canard particulier présente des feuilles en guise de plumes, mais la relation entre le perçu et l'attendu reste ici implicite. C'est PR 20 qui va mettre explicitement en mots la comparaison et la généralisation (les autres), introduisant le troisième terme (des ailes) qui relie plume à feuille. Ce que la maîtresse reformule: là ce sont des ailes qui sont des feuilles. Ce que l'on découvre ici, c'est que pour parler du dessin, ou plutôt de ce dessin, ou du moins d'en dire quelque chose d'intéressant il faut en sortir: renvoyer à du général (les autres canards), à d'autres expériences (à quoi ça vous fait penser). L'image devient alors momentanément occasion de discours. Ce que l'on voit dans les changements simultanés de genre et de monde chez PR 21 qui entame un récit, et même de changement de thème et de relation interlocutive chez Ad 19. On ne peut pas décider dans quel monde en revanche se situe la réponse de Es 38. Celui du dessin? celui, général, de la fonction des ailes? La reprise de la maîtresse est, dans sa concision, relativement opaque (c'est pour voler en même temps ses ailes) et son insistance sur le monde propre à l'image reste sans résultat. Car la séquence s'achève sans être réellement résolue.

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Ce qui est remarquable dans l'ensemble de cet extrait, c'est la façon dont l'adulte intervient. H ne dit pas à la place des enfants mais, en focalisant sur les participants d'avant plan, il suggère aux enfants que loirs mises en mots ne sont pas totalement adéquates à l'objet, elle leur montre les problèmes que pose une bonne formulation. Il est important de noter qu'à aucun moment l'adulte n'a imposé sa mise en mots, même s'il a, tout le long du dialogue cherché à faire partager sa perception. Mais peut-on dire qu'il leur a appris quelque chose? Ne leur a-t-il pas simplement montré qu'il ne suffit pas de dire quelque chose de vrai d'une image pour la comprendre.

7. Discussion Avant de revenir à la notion d'étayage et à son possible transfert dans le domaine des conduites verbales, je voudrais faire une remarque sur la position du descripteur. Lorsque nous analysons des données, nous occupons, à l'égard de l'échange verbal une position nécessairement différente de celle des interactants. D'abord, nous ne sommes pas dans leurs têtes. Sans donc nier le fait que les interlocuteurs puissent avoir des intentions, nous n'y avons pas directement accès. Nous ne sommes d'ailleurs pas non plus dans leurs têtes pour juger des inférences réalisées par les uns ou par les autres. En revanche, nous avons sur eux l'avantage de savoir où les a conduit l'interaction, de voir le sens (signification et direction) qu'elle a prise, et interpréter, en fonction d'une éventuelle résolution à un niveau global, la signification prise par des enchaînements de niveau local. Si l'on veut éviter d'identifier étayage et dialogisme (cf. Hudelot/Vasseur 1997) il est souhaitable de considérer l'étayage non comme un type d'énoncé (chargé d'intentions) mais plutôt comme un type d'enchaînement dialogique particulier. L'énoncé de l'adulte est contingent à la conduite de l'enfant (ce à quoi réfère la notion de déclencheur), mais pour que l'on parle d'étayage et non de directivité ou de contrôle, la réponse contingente de l'adulte doit également présenter un mode particulier de relation aux activités subséquentes. Certes, on peut parler d'étayage rigide, d'étayage amorphe, ou au contraire d'étayage organisateur (cf. Hudelot 1989), mais il s'agit au mieux de métaphores. En revanche, la question reste posée de la distinction entre étayage et co-construction. Pour que l'on parle d'étayage, il faut bien parler de dévolution (comme disent nos collègues didacticiens) de la résolution de la tâche à autrui. C'est en ce sens que l'on peut dire que l'étayage est quelque chose qui se dessine dans l'interlocution et non pas simplement un moment identifiable en un point donné de l'interlocution. Ainsi comprise la notion d'étayage a un statut comparable à celle d'évaluation chez un auteur comme William Labov (1978). De même que „l'évaluation" ne se trouve pas nécessairement en un lieu textuel défini puisque les éléments qui la communiquent se trouvent répartis tout au long du récit, de même l'étayage comme fonctionnement du dire de l'adulte se manifeste tantôt par un étayage local (localisable à un moment particulier du dialogue) tantôt comme un étayage global (qui se dessine par sa récurrence, comme les encouragements, les reprises, mais aussi par la sélection qui s'opère par

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l'ignorance au moins momentanée de telle ou telle thématique) ou qui se dessine dans l'enchaînement séquentiel dans la réitération, le développement thématique, l'autocontinuité de l'adulte sur lui-même. En un autre sens, les conduites des partenaires dessinent la situation, ou plutôt, dessinent la relation des participants à la présente situation. De ce point de vue, ce que l'on appelle parfois contrat didactique, n'est pas quelque chose de mystérieux qui précéderait la rencontre, mais un mode de relation à la situation partagée par les locuteurs qui serait consubstantielle de l'activité en cours. Bien évidemment, dire que cette relation est partagée ne signifie pas qu'elle est perçue de la même façon par chacun des participants (contrairement à ce qui se passerait entre des contractants qui doivent définir leurs rôles respectifs). Sans réellement pouvoir conclure, on peut dire que la métaphore brunérienne de l'étayage ouvre la voie à une interprétation fonctionnelle des dialogues considérés non en terme de structures mais de contrôle de l'activité conjointe orienté vers une fin. Ce faisant, elle ne doit pas nous empêcher, en tant qu'analystes du dialogue, de démonter les modalités de sa manifestation voire de remettre en cause la vision simpliste d'un mouvement d'étayage fonctionnant uniquement comme information minimum fournie par un expert permettant à un interlocuteur plus novice de franchir un obstacle dans la réalisation d'une tâche qu'ils ne réussit pas sans cette aide. Dans la perspective que nous avons choisi, étayer est avant tout fournir un cadre qui permette à l'autre de déployer une activité. L'étayeur est alors celui qui, par son discours et ses attitudes, dessine une atmosphère générale du dialogue, en limite le thème et les modalités de sa mise en mots, mais c'est aussi celui qui, plus localement, occupe des places discursives spécifiques que l'analyse du dialogue doit tenter de préciser.

Références Bruner, J. S./Hickmann, M. (1983), La conscience, la parole et la „zone proximale": réflexions sur la théorie de Vygotsky. In: Bruner, J. S., Le développement de l'enfant, savoir faire, savoir dire, Paris: PUF, 281-292. Florin, A.(1991), Pratiques du langage à l'école maternelle et prédication de la réussite scolaire, Paris: PUF, 245p. Florin, A./Braun-Lamesch, M.M./Bramaud du Boucheron, G. (1985), Le langage à l'école maternelle, Bruxelles: Mardaga, 213 p. François, F. (1988), Langue orale et langue écrite, une entrée: Dialogue et monologue. In: Langage oral, langage écrit: quels avatars! Où en est la dyslexie? ... Cahiers de l'Association française des C.M.P.P. 7, 15-21. François, F. (1993), Pratiques de l'oral. Dialogue, jeu et variations des figures du sens, Paris: Nathan. Hudelot, C. (1988) Rôle et place de l'adulte au cours de quelques dialogues adultes-enfants. In: L'interaction, Paris: BUSCILA, 95-106. Hudelot, C. (1997), Modalités d'interventions de l'adulte dans la gestion de petits groupes d'enfants de maternelle en situation de description d'image, Cahiers d'Acquisition et de Pathologie du Langage 14, 123-155. Hudelot, C/Vasseur M. T. (1997), Peut-on se passer de la notion d'étayage pour rendre compte de l'élaboration langagière en L1 et en L2. Cahiers d'Acquisition et de Pathologie du Langage 15, 115-141. Labov, W. (1978), La transformation du vécu à travers la syntaxe narrative. In: Le parler ordinaire, la langue des ghettos noirs des États Unis, Paris: Minuit, 289-335. Simonpoli, J.-F. (1991), La conversation enfantine, Paris: Hachette, 144 p. Stambak, M./Barrière, M./Bonica, I./Maisonnet, R/Musatti, T./Rayna, S./Verba, M. (1983), Les bébés entre eux. Découvrir, jouer, inventer ensemble, Paris: PUF, 191 p. Stambak, M/Sinclair, H. (dir.) (1990), Les jeux de fiction entre enfants de 3 ans, Paris: PUF, 202 p. Vygotski, L. S. (1985), Pensée et langage. Trad. de Françoise Sève. Paris: Éditions sociales. Wood, D./Ross, G./Bruner, J. (1976), The Rôle of Tutoring in Problem Solving, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatiy 17, 89-100.

J. -M. Odéric Delefosse

Actes de langage en interaction oral/écrit

1. Première observation des données 2. Les données situationnelles 2.1 Circonstances de l'interaction 2.2 Objectifs de l'interaction 2.3 Participants 3. Analyse de la séance en unités interactionnelles 3.1 Séquences 3.2 Echanges 3.3 Analyse des interventions 3.4 Taxinomie des actes de langage dans une interaction oral/écrit 3.5 Aperçu sur les actes de langage de la troisième séquence 4. La co-construction interactive d'un texte écrit 4.1 Un profil d'apprenant 4.2 Un profil de formateur 4.3 Un partage des opérations Références Annexe

Cette étude présente une partie de l'analyse interactionnelle d'un corpus constitué d'échanges entre une formatrice et un adulte illettré. Au cours de l'interaction, la formatrice cherche à faire parler l'apprenant sur un sujet convenu. Ici, il s'agira d'une course automobile. Selon le contrat passé entre eux, la formatrice écrit sous la dictée de l'apprenant les énoncés qu'elle juge acceptables à l'écrit. Si un énoncé est incomplet, incohérent ou non écrivable, la formatrice aide l'apprenant à le reformuler oralement. L'objectif de cette démarche particulière de réinsertion dans l'écrit est de permettre à un apprenant illettré de passer progressivement de ses performances orales, à la lecture et la production autonome d'écrits, en faisant provisoirement l'économie d'un apprentissage méthodique de type académique et en planifiant dans le temps les opérations cognitives constitutives de la production d'écrit (cf. Delefosse 1993, 1996; Rébard 1987; Uzé 1989). Mon objectif est de montrer que l'interaction n'est pas seulement le cadre de l'acquisition de l'oral et de l'écrit, mais qu'il en est l'élément constitutif (Bange 1991, 61). Plus précisément, je montre, à partir de l'analyse des unités interactionnelles (Roulet 1985) et plus particulièrement des actes de langage, quel est le rôle de chacun des interactants (formatrice et apprenant) dans la co-construction d'un écrit à partir de la production orale de l'apprenant. Après avoir donné les informations contextuelles nécessaires, je présenterai l'analyse de la troisième séquence de cette interaction (Bange 1991, Kerbrat-Orecchioni 1990, Roulet 1985), ses résultats provisoires et les questions qu'elle soulève.

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1. Première observation des données Les données linguistiques consistent en une transcription orthographique intégrale d'abord manuscrite par la formatrice, puis revue par l'analyste, à partir de l'enregistrement d'une séance de formation d'une vingtaine de minutes. Une première observation empirique indique qu'il s'agit: - d'un dialogue orienté et non d'une conversation naturelle; - d'un dialogue tutoriel (de Gaulmyn 1986) avec des aspects qui se rapprochent des échanges exolingues (Albert et Py 1985; Py 1995); - à l'intérieur duquel et grâce auquel se tisse la trame d'un court récit écrit; le récit d'abord oralisé devient la base d'un passage à l'écrit accompagné; - ce dialogue étant enregistré, il s'y ajoute cette contrainte particulière pour les interactants (Mahmoudian 1994), acceptée par l'apprenant qui a donné son accord, pour que ces séances fessent l'objet d'une recherche et par la formatrice qui m'a confié ce corpus. Sur le partage des rôles on constate: - qu'à un premier niveau, le dialogue est conduit par la formatrice qui est demandeur du récit; cependant, l'apprenant opérera des tentatives de renversement de situation; - que l'apprenant est l'auteur du récit, ce qui lui demande distanciation et focalisation sur un objectif précis et rappelé; il est également co-actant du dialogue; de son côté, la formatrice intervient dans la construction formelle et parfois référentielle du récit; - que peu d'échanges sont personnels; ils sont majoritairement orientés par les objectifs communs et les consignes rappelées; la formatrice se porte garant du respect de ce protocole; - on assiste à une double limitation des apports d'information de la part de l'apprenant; au niveau de la source, dans la mesure où l'apprenant ne connaît les faits que par la télévision; par le bridage provoqué par la formatrice qui oriente ses interventions davantage sur la forme (écrivable ou non) des apports que sur leur exactitude ou leur cohérence discursive.

2. Les données situationnelles sont fournies par la formatrice, d'une manière générale dans un article publié (Coppalle 1990) et d'une manière plus précise pour cette interaction dans une lettre qu'elle m'adresse. Ces informations sont parcellaires, dans la mesure où, par souci d'éthique, les éducateurs qui lui confient les illettrés ne lui communiquent aucune indication personnelle. Celles-ci ont été fournies par l'apprenant au cours des échanges avec sa formatrice.

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2.1 Circonstances de l'interaction Les interactants sont seuls et isolés dans une salle banalisée d'un C.A.T. (Centre d'Aide au Travail) de l'ouest de la France. Cette séance a lieu le 18 mai 1994 et dure 20 minutes environ. La formatrice suit l'apprenant depuis 8 ans à raison de 25 séances par an.

2.2

Objectifs de l'interaction

Objectifs généraux: APPRENANT - réapprendre à lire et à écrire - passer son CAP d'horticulteur - suivre les conseils de la formatrice - trouver auprès d'elle un appui Objectifs de la séance: APPRENANT - continuer un texte écrit à partir d'un accident au Grand Prix de Monaco - concilier connaissances sur l'action et impératifs formels édictés par la formatrice - construire oralement des énoncés écrivables

FORMATRICE - faire raconter l'accident - interagir pour que les énoncés oraux de l'apprenant puissent s'écrire - écrire le texte sous sa dictée - lui permettre de s'approprier la lecture et l'écriture de son énonciation

2.3 -

Participants APPRENANT né en 1963, il a 31 ans ne savait ni lire ni écrire à 23 ans commence à lire en comprenant salarié dans une entreprise d'espaces verts prépare son CAP d'horticulteur

FORMATRICE - aider efficacement l'apprenant à lire et à écrire - l'aider à „sortir de la misère"

FORMATRICE - institutrice retraitée - participe au groupe de travail sur l'illettrisme du CRALOÉ - travaille avec d'autres adultes du C. AT.

3. Analyse de la séance en unités interactionnelles 3.1

Séquences

Chaque séquence est constituée par un bloc d'échanges reliés par un fort degré de cohérence sémantique et/ou pragmatique. Les cinq séquences qui constituent cette interaction sont délimitées par le thème de l'énonciation et le texte dicté qui résulte des verbalisations:

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- séquence 1 : „ il y a eu un autre blessé dans laformule un à Monaco, un blessé grave, c 'est un autre Autrichien ", - séquence 2: „en prenait son virage il a été finir sa course dans les rails de sécurité ", - séquence 3 : „ il a blessé personne parce que c 'était des essais contre la montre ", - séquence 4: pas de texte produit mais des échanges d'explicitation préparant le texte de la cinquième séquence, - séquence 5 : „ / 'Autrichien est à l'hôpital, il est dans un coma profond qu 'on a provoqué pour qu 'il souffre moins"'.

3.2

Échanges

L'échange représente la plus petite unité dialogale; ses constituants sont les interventions qui entretiennent entre elles des relations illocutoires. Cette interaction comporte 56 échanges, soit en moyenne 11 par séquence. La délimitation des échanges n'a pas toujours pu se faire à partir des interventions mais des actes de langage (exemple, les échanges 22 et 24 en séquence 3; voir l'extrait de corpus en Annexe) Typologie des échanges: A part un échange d'une intervention et un autre de quatre, ils se répartissent en 32 échanges à deux interventions et 22 à trois. Les échanges à deux interventions sont composés d'une intervention initiale suivie d'une intervention réactive. La séquence 3 en comporte quatre qui sont assez représentatifs de l'ensemble de l'interaction: - échange 23: cet échange est engagé par l'apprenant qui fait une proposition que la formatrice ponctue par un voilà encourageant; - échange 24: elle enchaîne sur une injonction correspondant aux objectifs communs et lui fait une proposition sous forme de reformulation que reprend l'apprenant en la lui dictant; - échange 25: même structure que 24; - échange 26: la formatrice relit ce que l'apprenant vient de lui dicter et lui pose une question directe pour l'inciter à poursuivre son énonciation; l'apprenant répond à cette sollicitation par une phrase complexe. Les échanges à trois interventions reprennent la configuration des paires adjacentes, complétée par une évaluation. La séquence 3 en compte deux: - échange 22: la formatrice pose une question directe à laquelle répond l'apprenant après une réfutation; la troisième intervention ah marque l'étonnement de la formatrice mais aussi la restauration de l'intercompréhension; - échange 27: ce deuxième échange débute par une injonction de la formatrice à laquelle l'apprenant répond par un long développement; la troisième intervention oui marque l'assentiment de la formatrice.

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Cette analyse rapide des types d'échanges donne déjà de précieuses indications sur les rôles joués au cours de l'interaction par les deux locuteurs en coprésence: rôle directeur et facilitateur joué par la formatrice, docilité de l'apprenant qui apporte le matériel énonciatif, tous deux favorisant la réalisation des objectifs communs. L'analyse des interventions et des actes de langage va compléter ces premiers éléments.

3.3

Analyse des interventions

Première unité monologale de l'interaction, l'intervention ne se confond pas toujours avec l'énoncé (ou tour de parole); cette interaction compte en effet 112 énoncés et 133 interventions. Chaque intervention est composée d'un ou plusieurs actes de langage. On peut repérer trois types d'interventions: - initiales, sous forme de question (22a, 27a), d'apport d'information (23a, 26a), d'injonction (24a, 25b); - réactives, sous forme de réponse (22b, 24b, 26b, 27b); - évaluatives, étonnement (22c), assentiment (23b, 27c). La comparaison formatrice/apprenant révèle un parallélisme attendu entre le nombre élevé d'interventions initiales chez la formatrice (41) et le nombre presque équivalent d'interventions réactives (généralement des réponses) chez l'apprenant (39). On notera cependant que 16 interventions sont initiales chez l'apprenant qui sont autant de prises d'initiatives. Les évaluatives sont naturellement massives chez la formatrice (17); deux sont proposées par l'apprenant et concernent des assentiments à des reformulations de la formatrice.

3 .4

Taxinomie des actes de langage dans une interaction oral/écrit

L'acte de langage sera considéré ici comme l'unité minimale de la grammaire conversationnelle. Dans la présentation du corpus, chacun est numéroté et présenté en retour à la ligne. Sont privilégiées les valeurs représentant les modalités de l'action pédagogique et linguistique de la formatrice en direction de l'apprenant; c'est en la testant sur d'autres corpus que des réajustements pourront être apportés à cette première liste. Chaque acte de langage est borné et analysé en fonction des facteurs suivants: - le fait de langage, dans sa matérialité et en relation avec la langue (valeur locutoire); - sa valeur interactionnelle, en fonction des objectifs de l'interaction (valeur illocutoire); - sa valeur de régulation du dialogue (valeur perlocutoire); - sa valeur pédagogique ou didactique (qui rejoint ici les objectifs annoncés de l'interaction, mais peut aussi s'en éloigner).

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En cas de conflit entre ces différentes valeurs (effet janus) celle qui semble dominante sur le plan de la pragmatique a été privilégiée. Dans un premier temps trois grandes classes sont retenues: 3.4.1 Les actes régulateurs, marqueurs spécifiques de l'interaction sont subdivisés en deux catégories: - ceux qui expriment des états psychologiques des intendants: 111 remplissage de gap (euh, ben...) 112 accord 113 désaccord (non, je suis pas d'accord, c 'est pas ça...) 114 étonnement - incompréhension 115 réparation (excuse-moi..) 118 modalisation (je serais content si, j'aimerais bien...) 119 hésitation - ceux qui ajustent et orientent la nature des échanges: 121 consigne 122 rappel de consigne 123 injonction - ordre - conseil 124 scansion (attends, va pas si vite, stop, je suis plus...) 125 encouragement - relance (vas-y, allez, je t'écoute...) 126 performatif - énonciatif- constatif (je relis, j'écris ce que tu me dis) 3.4.2

Les actes référentiels ne concernent pas les interactants mais ce qu'ils apportent sur le plan

informatif à l'échange mutuel; on distingue: - les actes qui engagent un échange: 2111 interrogation directe 2112 interrogation indirecte 212 demande d'explicitation 2131 apport d'information sur le thème de l'interaction 2132 apport d'information hors thème 2133 apport d'information personnel 2134 jugement de valeur (moi je pense que .) - ceux qui expriment une réaction: 221 réponse directe à une interrogation ou demande 222 réfutation - dénégation (je n 'ai pas dit que...) 223 complétion - enfin les pannes: 231 incohérence - hors sujet 232 panne lexicale 233 (ind. ) - élément indéchiffrable ou inaudible

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3.4.3 Les actes métadiscursifs portent sur le texte produit par l'un ou l'autre des participants; ils sont classés en trois catégories. - les reprises sans modification de la source: 311 à valeur incitative 312 à valeur corrective 313 à valeur approbative 314 à valeur dubitative 315 répétition en écho 316 auto-reprise - les reprises avec modification: 321 immédiate 322 différée - les évaluations portant sur la forme linguistique: 331 auto évaluation 332 hétéro évaluation

3.5

Aperçu sur les actes de langage de la troisième séquence

Les 22 actes de langage de la troisième séquence se partagent en: - 9 régulateurs, tous produits par la formatrice (2 acquiescements, 1 marque d'étonnement, 1 injonction, 1 scansion, 3 relances et 1 performatif) - 8 référentiels: 5 produits par l'apprenant (4 apports d'information et une réfutation) 3 interrogations indirectes produites par la formatrice - 5 métadiscursifs: 3 par la formatrice (une reprise, une répétition en écho et une reformulation) 2 par l'apprenant qui sont des répétitions immédiates des fins d'énoncés de la formatrice.

4. La co-construction interactive d'un texte écrit L'analyse interactionnelle dont nous avons présenté ici quelques éléments confirme dans son ensemble les premières observations empiriques et permet de dégager quelques traits des profils des interactants.

4.1

Un profil d'apprenant

L'apprenant participe de manière passive à la régulation de l'échange: il donne simplement son assentiment (10) aux propositions, encouragements et injonctions de la formatrice. Il laisse la

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formatrice diriger les opérations, ce qui est une attitude attendue d'un apprenant dans sa situation et qui fait une démarche volontaire et motivée. Cependant, dans la catégorie des actes référentiels, les rôles s'inversent: la matière référentielle de base, à partir de laquelle se jouent les négociations est apportée par l'apprenant. Il ne répond pas uniquement aux injonctions de la formatrice mais prend assez souvent l'initiative et c'est donc son énonciation qui fait progresser l'élaboration du texte. Dans deux cas (1-175 et 2-177), cette initiative se manifeste par des questions directes auxquelles la formatrice répond. On note peu d'hésitations et de difficultés chez l'apprenant qui semble avoir une bonne représentation du texte qu'il désire produire. Sur le plan du traitement formel, on relève un nombre relativement important de répétitions écholaliques qui reprennent ce que la formatrice avait déjà reformulé. Les auto reprises montrent une certaine dépendance à l'égard de la formatrice mais aussi un désir d'affirmer sa propre énonciation (6). Ce fait se confirme par les autoévaluations de son propre langage: 5 négatives et 3 positives. Cet apprenant remplit donc ses objectifs avec bonne volonté et même détermination. On peut constater également que cet apprenant a déjà bénéficié d'un important entraînement au langage syntaxiquement structuré; ses propositions orales, en situation de dictée au formateur ne nécessitent que très peu d'ajustements pour pouvoir être écrites; il est déjà presque scripteur sur le plan socio-cognitif et pourrait aborder une nouvelle phase d'apprentissage où il serait accompagné par sa formatrice et selon des modalités d'interaction similaires, dans ses premières énonciations écrites autonomes (Delefosse 1993; Uzé 1989).

4.2

Un profil de formateur

La formatrice, au contraire, sur-régule les échanges. Les acquiescements (15) et les injonctions (14) sont renforcés par les encouragements (11). Les remplissages de gaps (8) correspondent à une forme de ponctuation de son discours lui permettant de réfléchir et de masquer sa gène ou son embarras. Il s'agit donc d'une communication inégale avec une forte pression de la formatrice sur l'apprenant; cependant celle-ci est acceptée car elle est partie intégrante des objectifs mutuels de l'interaction. La classe 126 comprend les actes de langage par lesquels la formatrice énonce ce qu'elle est en train de réaliser: je te relis, j'écris. Ce type de verbalisation joue un rôle important dans ce mode particulier de passage à l'écrit, en effet, il marque fortement ce qui est en train de se réaliser par l'interaction. Sur le plan référentiel, on notera les stratégies de la formatrice qui suscite les verbalisations, les reprend, les traite mais n'apporte pratiquement pas de nouveau matériel énonciatif; les questions sont mesurées, généralement indirectes et correspondant à une construction a minima du récit. S'agjssant du travail de traitement de l'information apportée par l'apprenant (actes métadiscursifs), il est attendu que la formatrice joue là aussi un rôle moteur (63,6% des actes formels).

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On remarque une grande bienveillance à l'égard des propositions de l'apprenant: 23 reprises dont 19 sont positives et 4 seulement sont refusées (1 corrective et 3 dubitatives). Les autres reprises (2) pourraient facilement être assimilées aux remplissages de gap. Le travail de transformation des propositions de l'apprenant est peu important (10 reformulations immédiates et 2 différées): la formatrice s'efface et ne propose guère de matériel langagier nouveau ou autrement formulé. Le profil de la formatrice se caractérise ainsi par la réalisation de trois fonctions: facilitation, étayage provisoire et normalisation. Facilitation, car elle encourage avec patience les verbalisations même maladroites de l'apprenant, lui indique clairement qu'elles sont écrivables ou non, lui pose des questions adroites en lui permettant de progresser dans la construction de son récit et dans sa formulation écrivable. Elle l'aide ainsi à dépasser sa situation d'illettré. Étayage car elle pallie provisoirement les difficultés de l'apprenant tout en respectant son projet; les nombreuses reprises et relectures lui permettent de prendre du recul et cette distanciation par rapport à l'immédiateté de l'oral autorise un contrôle et le nécessaire travail métalinguistique. Normalisation enfin car par sa compétence de l'écrit, reconnue par l'apprenant, elle met en place les conditions fonctionnelles de modifiabilité de l'appareil énonciatif de l'apprenant. Elle se pose comme médiateur entre l'oral de l'apprenant et les exigences sociales de l'écrit à venir. D faut cependant reconnaître que dans l'interaction qui a servi de base à notre analyse, une dimension importante fait défaut. Il s'agit de la finalité de l'écrit co-produit et de son éventuel destinataire (cf. Delefosse 1996). D semble en effet que le texte produit ne soit pas destiné à dépasser le cadre de l'interaction; pour évaluer les énoncés proposés par l'apprenant, la formatrice ne peut donc se fonder sur une typologie et des contraintes propres à un écrit envisagé; à défaut, c'est à partir de sa propre intuition et donc sur un certain modèle de langue que ses ajustements sont proposés. Une étude comparative (en cours) de plusieurs interactions, avec des formateurs différents permettra d'affiner cette première analyse et d'établir des corrélations avec les paramètres situationnels, notamment les objectifs des interactants. Dans le prolongement de cette recherche, et pour caractériser plus finement les relations interpersonnelles spécifiques à ce type d'interaction, nous avons adapté le modèle de Brown et Levinson (1978, 1987), complété par les travaux de Kerbrat-Orecchioni (1992), en situant chaque acte de langage sur trois axes: proxémique, hiérarchique et consensuel. (Delefosse à paraître). Cette analyse pourrait devenir un moyen de formation et de contrôle pour les formateurs en littératie.

4.3

Un partage des opérations

Le passage d'une énonciation orale contrôlée à une énonciation reconnue comme relevant de l'écrit se présente donc au cours de telles interactions dans un continuum sans fracture. Les opérations

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successives constitutives du processus général dit de la „dictée au formateur" mettent en évidence les rôles de chacun dans l'élaboration du texte. En effet, une telle évolution suppose, chez l'apprenant, la réalisation d'opérations facilitées par l'action de l'accompagnateur (formateur): a) un déblocage de l'énonciation orale source, c'est-à-dire la capacité d'en modifier la forme linguistique. Le formateur facilite cette opération par un certain nombre d'actes de langage répertoriés dans l'analyse du corpus: • le questionnement plus ou moins ouvert et direct, la demande d'explidtation, la manifestation de l'incompréhension ou de l'étonnement; • les reprises, notamment dubitatives, les propositions de formulation différente, les propositions de reformulation; • les évaluations positives (bien, vas-y), ou négatives (çaje peux pas l'écrire..)-, b) la construction progressive d'une représentation intuitive puis raisonnée de la forme linguistique de l'écrit. Pour ce faire, l'apprenant doit être exposé à différentes variétés d'écrits desquelles il pourra inférer les marques spécifiques. Il doit également avoir eu l'expérience d'activités de lecture et d'écriture, dont celles réalisées à partir de son énonciation orale; c) l'expérience positive et au début étonnante que son propre parler peut, à certaines conditions et en subissant certaines transformations, être reçu comme de l'écrit. Pour ce faire, le formateur a) doit se porter garant de l'écrivabilité ou pas de l'énoncé proposé (ça je peux l'écrire, là je peux pas l'écrire, tu dois me le dire autrement...)', b) il écrit dès que la verbalisation orale lui parait écrivable; c) cet oral/écrit peut alors être lu et relu par l'apprenant, le formateur ou n'importe qui, car il possède les fonctions fondamentales de l'écrit: la permanence et la pérennité. Grâce aux modalités particulières de cette interaction, révélées par l'analyse des actes de langage, l'apprentissage de la lecture et de l'écriture est cognitivement réalisé, il suffira ensuite de l'instrumentaliser pour le rendre opérationnel: a) Apprentissage de l'écriture: en suivant des yeux le tracé graphique de son parler, l'apprenant fait l'expérience de la transformation de sa chaîne parlée en unités graphiques ayant la même signification que sa parole. Il repère la séquenciation des unités grâce à la verbalisation et la graphie simultanées du formateur. Très vite, on constate que l'apprenant ralentit son débit en dictant pour s'aligner sur le rythme d'écriture de son scripteur et produit des séquences correspondant à la segmentation syntaxique des phrases. Si le formateur verbalise la ponctuation, sa fonctionnalité pourra être intégrée selon le même processus. Cet apprentissage de l'écriture est renforcé par les relectures et le passage en traitement de texte puis lorsque l'apprenant recopie son texte dicté et imprimé. Il est effectivement réalisé lorsque le formateur l'accompagne selon une démarche interactive similaire dans ses premiers pas de l'écriture autonome où l'apprenant s'empare du stylo ou du clavier (Delefosse 1993; Uzé 1989).

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b) L'apprentissage de la lecture est concomitant de celui de l'écriture. La lecture est d'abord acquise par tâtonnement en économisant l'analyse de la concordance phonème-graphème et ce, par la reconnaissance de ce qu'écrit et lit le formateur. En effet, l'apprenant suit de l'oeil et de l'oreille ses propres paroles que le formateur lit tout en les écrivant. Dans cette démarche de dictée au formateur, l'apprenant peut suivre mot à mot sa parole devenant trace écrite, et très vite il peut en contrôler l'inscription. Cet apprentissage est renforcé à chaque fois que le formateur relit ce qui a été dicté et que relit en même temps l'apprenant. Au moment du traitement de texte sur ordinateur, c'est lui, qui à son tour prend le texte manuscrit et le dicte au formateur tout en contrôlant son inscription sur l'écran, s'entraînant par là à passer de la lecture de l'écriture manuscrite à celle de l'imprimé. C'est une fois que ces activités de lecture et d'écriture ont trouvé une signification pour l'apprenant qu'il est capable de procéder aux généralisations et aux approfondissements que sont les activités de déchiflrage, d'épellation, puis, pour l'écriture, à l'assimilation des régularités grammaticales et orthographiques.

Références Albert, J.-P./Py, B. (1985), Interlangue et conversation exolingue. In: Cahiers du DLSL 1, 30-47. Bange, P. (1991), Séquences acquisitionnelles en communication exolingue. In: Russier, C./Stoffel, H./Véronique, D. (eds.), Interactions en langue étrangère, Publications de l'Université de Provence, 61-66. Bouchard, R. (1987), Structuration et conflits de structuration. In: Cosnier, J./Keibrat-Orecchioni, C. (eds.), Décrire la conversation, Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 73-104. Brown, P./Levinson, S. (1978), Universals in Language Use: Politeness Phenomena. In: Brown, P./Levinson, S. (1978), Politeness. Some universals in language use, Cambridge: CUP. Coppalle, F. (1990), Amener des illettrés à une recherche de signification de l'écrit. In: L'acquisition du langage oral et écrit 25, 18-23. Delefosse, J.-M. O. (1992), L'acquisition du langage oral et écrit: vers une linguistique de l'acquisition. In: Buscila, Bulletin de l'ASL, Paris. Delefosse, J.-M.O. (1996), Interaction verbale et réapprentissage de l'écrit. In: Colloque International IADA: Nouvelles perspectives dans l'analyse de l'interaction verbale, sous presse: Niemeyer. Delefosse, J.-M.O. (ed.), (1993), Par l'écriture, Réinsertion dans l'écrit de publics hétérogènes, Paris: PSN. Ervin-Trip, S. (1994), Impact du cadre interactionnel sur les acquisitions en syntaxe. In: AILE 4, 53-80. Gaulmyn, M.-M. de (1986), Apprendre à expliquer. In: Tranel 11, 119-139. Keibrat-Orecchioni, C. (1990, 1992, 1994), Les interactions verbales, tomes 1, 2, 3, Paris: Colin. Kerbrat-Orecchioni, C. (1995), Où sont les actes de langage? In: L'information grammaticale 66, 5-12. Mahmoudian, M. (1994), Questions sur le dialogue en question. In: Cahiers du CISL, Actes du Colloque „Le dialogue en question", Université de Toulouse-Le-Mirail, 459-465. Mondada, L. (1995), Introduction: Pour une approche des formes linguistiques dans les dynamiques interactionnelles. In: Cahiers de l'ILSL 7, 1-18. Py, B. (1995), Interaction exolingue et processus d'acquisition. In: Cahiers de l'ILSL 7, 159-175. Rébard, M.-Th. (1987), Apprentissage personnalisé de la langue écrite, Paris: PSN. Roulet, E. (ed.), (1985), L'articulation du discours en français contemporain, Berne: Peter Lang. Uzé, M. (1989), Je parle donc je lis, Paris: Fleurus.

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ANNEXE Séquence 3 : analyse en unités interactionnelles 102. a JL24 il (a) été, , ben ((il a été finir sa course dans les rails de sécurité)) 103. b F24 voilà, , 104...... et.il a été finir sa course.dMs les.rails.de.s^ , Séquence 3 Échange 22 105. a sais-tu s'il a blessé des gens ? 106. bJL25non:::, , mais non, , 107. c'était en essais, , alors 108. c F25 ah Échange 23 109. a JL26 des essais: :,, des essais de quelques jours avant 110. b F 2 6 voilà, , Échange 24 111. a alors tu peux me faire une belle phrase, , là, 112. pour me dire qu'il n'a blessé personne 113. b JL27 il a blessé personne Échange 25 114. a F27 alors vas-y, , 115. attends, , 116. j'écris, , .1 .î.?.-..... .U n'. a. blessé .personne 118. b JL28 personne Échange 26 119. a F 2 8 il n ' a b l e s s é p e r s o m , 120. à toi, , 121. pourquoi? 122. b JL29 pa(r)ce que c'était un essai de:::. , enfin ((c'était des essais contre la montre)) Échange 27 123. a F29 tu vas m'expliquer ce qu'ils font en essais, , 124. vas-y 125. b JL30 c'est des essais pour savoir lequel qui part le dimanche en premier pour, , c'est contre la montre qu'(il) y a, , un tour s'(il) y a six kilomètres, ,faut qu'il arrive à une minute trente ou une minute quarante ça dépend 126. c F30 oui, , Séquence 4 Échange 28 127.

a donc,, il n'a pas pu savoir à quelle place il allait partir

Conventions: - en souligné continu: l'apprenant dicte au formateur - en souligné pointillé: le formateur écrit en oralisant, ou relit

Maria Helena Araujo Carreira Proxémique verbale: un cadre méthodologique pour l'analyse des dialogues

1. Position du problème 2. Repères théoriques 3. Proposition d'un cadre abstrait 4. Illustration dialogique 5. Conclusion Notes Références

1. Position du problème Le foisonnement des interactions verbales, quant à leurs contenus et à leurs fonctions mais aussi quant aux moyens linguistiques mis en œuvre par les interlocuteurs, nous laissent perplexes lorsque l'on cherche à rendre compte avec une certaine rigueur de cette complexité. Au-delà des contenus informationnels, qui peuvent être plus ou moins riches selon les dialogues, il y a une composante qui s'avère fondamentale en situation interlocutive: la régulation de la relation interpersonnelle. La fonction relationnelle de l'interaction a fait l'objet d'un certain nombre d'études, dont il faut souligner, en France, celles de D. André-Larochebouvy et de C. Kerbrat-Orecchioni. Dans son ouvrage Les interactions verbales, C. Kerbrat-Orecchioni donne une attention particulière à la fonction relationnelle des échanges, en particulier dans le tome II: Une part importante du matériel produit au cours de l'interaction n'a d'autre fonction que relationnelle: quête d'un consensus, désir d'avoir raison (ou raison de l'autre), souci de ménager la face d'autrui, ou de la lui faire perdre...; valeur qui agit insidieusement mais efficacement dans le dialogue, même si elle est souvent plus dissimulée, car moins „officielle" que le contenu informationnel (Kerbrat-Orecchioni 1992, p. 13).

De ce point de vue, la double question que je me suis posée et qui m'a amené à développer un cadre théorique et méthodologique (cf. Araujo Carreira 1997) dont je présenterai ici quelques jalons est la suivante: De quels moyens verbaux de modalisation disposent les sujets parlants d'une langue, pour réguler leur distance interlocutive? Comment ces moyens linguistiques sont-ils mis en œuvre dans la variabilité des situations discursives?

Maria Helena Araùjo Carreìra

340 2. Repères théoriques: Edward Hall et Bernard Pottier

Le cadre que j'ai conçu est le résultat d'un agencement interdisciplinaire de deux notions: - la notion de „proxémique" développée par l'anthropologue E. Hall, - la notion de trimorphe, telle que la conçoit le linguiste sémanticien B. Pottier. Rappelons très brièvement que E. Hall crée, dans les années 60, une nouvelle discipline, la proxémique, qu'il définit comme l'étude de la perception de l'usage de l'espace par l'homme.... Elle traite de l'architecture, de l'ameublement et de l'utilisation de l'espace.... La proxémique cherche à déterminer comment nous établissons des distances (Hall 1981, p. 191 et p. 196).

La création de la proxémique doit beaucoup, comme son fondateur le souligne (id. p. 197), à la distinction établie par le zoologiste Hediger entre espèces „à contact" et „sans contact". La transposition de ces notions à l'espace interlocutif éclairait mon questionnement, mais il fallait pouvoir cerner „l'utilisation", „l'ameublement" verbal de cet espace, de façon à construire un cadre pour l'étude des échanges verbaux. J'ai fait alors appel à la figure de base, le trimorphe conçu par Bernard Pottier comme le noème - „figure mentale universelle", B. Pottier, 1992, p. 57 - du contact et de la distance, représenté par la courbe. Celle-ci suggère le continuum, dominé par l'axe du temps (—>). Nous avons ainsi les trois phases: I approche, II contact, III éloignement.

I

Le trimorphe: Noémie du contact et de la distance (B. Pottier, Séminaire à la Sorbonne, 1993-94)

Ce schéma de base intégrateur des catégorisations sémantiques des langues - comme nous le montrent des études récentes de B. Pottier (1994 a), b), 1995 a), b))1 - devrait pouvoir aussi constituer un support abstrait pour la régulation de la distance en interlocution.

3. Proposition d'un cadre abstrait: l'ensemble des possibles C'est à partir de la figure de base, le trimorphe, conçu par B. Pottier, que j'ai élaboré une représentation spéculaire cyclique de façon à intégrer les mouvements d'approche, de contact et d'éloignement.

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II

I

341

III Interlocuteur A Interlocuteur B

I

III Le trimorphe cyclique: l'espace interlocutif de A et de B

La représentation cyclique de cette figure de base spéculaire peut se prolonger théoriquement à l'infini (I, H, III, I, II...—> œ). Elle nous permet de visualiser des cinétismes, des „arrêts sur image", des symétries et des asymétries dans l'espace interlocutif. Nous avons ainsi un repère conceptuel puissant nous permettant d'intégrer du point de vue de la régulation de la distance interlocutive, des réalisations discursives et des mouvements dialogiques très variés. Si on garde à l'esprit la multiplicité des variantes asymétriques que le trimorphe cyclique, transposé à la représentation de l'espace interlocutif, permet de suggérer, nous pouvons concevoir une multiplicité de combinaisons. En effet, pour chaque mouvement de base (I l'approche, II le contact, III l'éloignement), nous avons des positions interlocutives symétriques et asymétriques. Dans le cas des positions symétriques les discours de l'interlocuteur A et de l'interlocuteur B peuvent se caractériser par rapport au même mouvement du trimorphe, ce qui n'est pas le cas des positions interlocutives asymétriques. Prenons deux exemples de variantes asymétriques: - l'interlocuteur A passe de l'éloignement de B à un rapprochement de plus en plus grand, jusqu'à la zone de contact, alors que B se maintient dans la zone de contact pour ensuite s'en éloigner.

A

B

- l'interlocuteur B passe de l'éloignement de A à un rapprochement de plus en plus grand, jusqu'à la zone de contact, alors que A se maintient dans la zone de contact pour ensuite s'en éloigner.

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A

B

L'enchevêtrement des mouvements suggérés ainsi que la représentation d'un espace interlocutif à plus de deux interlocuteurs2 peuvent également être intégrés à ces représentations abstraites fondées sur le trimorphe. Cette géométrie des possibles, dont je viens d'exposer les grandes lignes, constitue, à mon sens, un repère conceptuel cohérent des solutions linguistiques en interlocution.

4. Illustration dialogique Le cadre ébauché m'a permis de rapprocher un certain nombre de faits linguistiques dispersés au sein d'interactions verbales en portugais. C'est ainsi que les formes d'adresse, les particules ou expressions conversationnelles, les formes de politesse et les modalités linguistiques (leurs moyens et leur combinaison dans le dialogue) ont été étudiées du point de vue de la régulation de la distance interlocutive (voir Araújo Carreira, 1997, 3em,: partie, pp. 271-316). Étant donné les limites d'espace, je me limiterai ici à présenter quelques procédés d'éloignement (phase III du trimorphe) interlocutif, mis à l'œuvre dans cinq séquences extraites d'un dialogue3. Les interlocuteurs A et B ont autour de 30 ans. A est un coiffeur de 34 ans, dont la voiture est en stationnement gênant; B est un agent de police. Il demande les documents à A et lui annonce qu'il aura une contravention à payer. (Séq. (Séq. (Séq. (Séq.

1) 2) 3) 4)

BABA -

Olhe, fazia o favor, os seus documentos. (S'il vous plaît, vos papiers). Porqué? (Pourquoi?) (N.B. A montre ses papiers). O senhor tá autuado. (M'sieur, vous avez une contravention). O senhor está autuado? Mas o senhor sabe se o carro é meul (Monsieur, vous avez une contravention? Mais, savez-vous, Monsieur, si cette voiture est à moi?) (Séq. 5) B - Mas o senhor faz o favor de tirar o carro. (Mais, s'il vous plaît, Monsieur, déplacez votre voiture).

Les procédés d'éloignement interlocutif se fondent, dans ce dialogue, tout particulièrement sur les formes d'adresse, les formes interlocutoires (ou particules et expressions conversationnelles) et les formes de politesse. Ces trois types de formes se trouvent intimement liées dans leur fonctionnement. Du point de vue de l'adresse (rappelons que le „tratamento" du portugais européen4 est très complexe et hiérarchisé), la forme ,,o senhor" est adéquate dans une situation neutre, entre deux

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hommes qui ne se connaissent pas et qui s'adressent l'un à l'autre poliment. Or, ces quelques échanges, malgré la présence dominante de „o senhor", manifestent un rapport conflictuel entre les interlocuteurs. Essayons de déceler ce qui, dans le „tratamento" de ce dialogue contribue à créer un mouvement d'éloignement interlocutif. „Tratamento" et politesse vont de pair, car une forme d'adresse ressentie comme non polie est une manifestation d'éloignement. À l'exception des deux premiers tours de parole, tous les autres contiennent la forme „0 senhor". Le „tratamento" initial se limite à l'emploi du verbe à la 3 p e r s o n n e („Olhe", ,fazia") et du possessif „seus". Il n'y a aucune marque de respect: l'adresse se caractérise ici par une sorte de degré zéro. Si le facteur âge plaçait A en position haute relativement à B (qui garderait de toute façon sa position haute par rapport au facteur autorité) alors ce choix de „tratamento" initial aurait pu être ressenti par A comme non respectueux. La seule manifestation de respect dans la séquence 1 (Olhe, fazia o favor, os seus documentos) est la forme de politesse, Jazia o favor" (dont il convient de souligner l'emploi de l'imparfait de l'indicatif qui assure un degré plus élevé que le présent de l'indicatif). „Olhe", en début de séquence, remplit une fonction d'appel et convient à des échanges plutôt familiers. Or, tenant compte de l'environnement pragmatique du message en cours d'analyse, les manifestations de familiarité ne semblent pas adéquates. L'acte d'ordre, dont l'expression se réduit au groupe nominal „os seus documentos", correspond à une injonction forte. Cette injonction se fonde sur un procédé de renvoi déictique à l'espace du TU (os seus documentos), qui, de par le „tratamento" choisi, n'est pas valorisé. En d'autres termes, en absence de Jazia o favor", il s'agirait d'un acte d'ordre impoli puisque l'injonction ne subirait aucune atténuation („Olhe, os seus documente^'). Un tel acte d'ordre se situerait alors dans le pôle négatif de l'axe de politesse. Si, d'une part, A accomplit l'ordre que B lui adresse (A montre ses papiers) - ce qui suppose qu'il accepte que B est en mesure de lui donner cet ordre - d'autre part A demande des justifications à B (,JPorquê?") - ce qui laisse entendre qu'il remet en question l'ordre de B. Le message verbal et le comportement non verbal de B ne sont donc pas en isotopie. L'absence de forme d'adresse et/ou de politesse ne fait que renforcer la non-atténuation de l'acte de demande de justification, proche de l'injonction. Pour terminer cette rapide analyse, j'aimerais attirer l'attention sur l'enchaînement des séquences 3 („O senhor tâ autuado") et 4 („0 senhor esta autuadol Mas o senhor sabe se o carro é meu?"). Le jeu des désignations soumises à un questionnement (de A), remet en cause la mise en relation d'identité des désignations allocutive et élocutive. On pourrait gloser ceci de la façon suivante: ,/4 pessoa que .o senhor' esta a autuar e que trata por ,o senhor' nâo sou certamente eu ". L'effet de l'éloignement interlocutif maximum résulte de la reprise totale de ce que l'interlocuteur vient d'énoncer (y compris le „tratamento" choisi) tout en transformant l'assertion de celui-ci en un énoncé interrogatif (remarquons également la reprise corrigée de „ta" qui devient „esté"). Le „tratamento" joue ici un rôle important. En effet, si A n'avait pas repris la forme d'adresse allocutive qui le désigne, tout en revenant sur la décision de B, il aurait dit „(eu)

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estou autuado"? L'adéquation de ce „tratamento" élocutif aurait réduit l'effet d'éloignement évoqué, car l'emploi de „eu" manifeste la prise en charge par l'énonciateur de ce qu'il énonce. La reprise totale par A de l'assertion de son interlocuteur (B), et sa transformation en un énoncé interrogatif, remet en cause à la fois l'acte illocutoire auquel l'énoncé de B renvoie et l'identification de ,,o senhor" - le TU (=A) du JE (=B) - avec „eu" (=A). A refuse, d'une certaine façon, la relation interlocutive créée par B. La remise en question de l'assertion de B est donc radicale5.

5. Conclusion Les moyens de modalisation interlocutive mis en œuvre pour la régulation de la distance sont très variés et leur enchevêtrement très complexe, comme les quelques séquences présentées l'illustrent bien. Le cadre théorique et méthodologique, dont je viens de dresser les grandes lignes, pourra constituer une base pour des analyses d'interactions verbales cherchant à mettre en rapport réalisations discursives, potentialités de la langue, attitudes communicatives et possibles conceptuels.

Notes 1. Ces articles sont réunis dans un Recueil de l'auteur, intitulé Sémantique des représentations mentales (topodynamique cognitive), suivi de trois index: noms, concepts et termes témoins. 2. Voir D. André-Larochebouvy (1984, pp. 41-50, chap. II L'extérieur du système: les participants de la situation); C. Kerb rat-Orecchioni et Ch. Plantin, Ed. (1995). 3. Voir l'entretien n° 401 des Archives du Portugais Fondamental (Centro de Lingüística das Universidades de Lisboa). 4. Voir Araújo Carreira (1997, chap. 2, pp. 28-87). 5. Pour une présentation plus détaillée de l'analyse de ce dialogue, voir Aiaújo Carreira (1997, pp. 302-310).

Références André-Larochebouvy, D. (1984), La conversation quotidienne, Paris: Didier/Crédif. Araújo Carreira, M. H. (1997), Modalisation linguistique en situation d'interlocution: proxémique verbale et modalités en portugais, Louvain-Paris: Peeters. Hall, E. (1981), Proxémique. In: Yves Winkin (org.), La nouvelle communication (191-221), Paris: Seuil (Éd. orig. in Current Antropology, 1968, 9 (2-3), 95-108. Keibrat-Orecchioni, C. (1992), Les interactions verbales (tome 2), Paris: Armand Collin. Kerbrat-Orecchioni, C. et Plantin, Ch. (eds.), (1995), Le Trilogue, Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon. Pottier, B. (1992), Sémantique Générale, Paris: PUF. (1994a) Les schèmes mentaux et la langue, Modèles linguistiques, vol. 30, XV-2, 7-50, Presses Univ. de Lille. (1994b) Schème mental intégrateur des catégories sémantiques, Passion des Formes, Dynamique qualitative, sémiophysique et intelligibilité, Hommage à René Thom, ed. ENS de Fontenay-Saint Cloud, 769-777. (1995a) Le cognitif et le linguistique, Arba 3, Acta Romanica Basiliensa, 175-199. (1995b) Le temps du monde, le temps de l'énonciation et le temps de l'événement, Modèles linguistiques, vol. 31, XVI-1, 9-26.

Dominique

Bautet

Les contraintes physiologiques de la gestuelle

1. Introduction 2. Présentation des degrés de liberté pour chaque segment 3. Relations entre les types de mouvements pour un même segment 3.1 La main 3.2 L'avant-bras 3 .3 Le bras 4. Dynamique du mouvement Note Références

1. Introduction La notation de la gestuelle pose encore le problème du niveau de résolution qu'on adopte dans l'étude de la communication non verbale. Plusieurs systèmes coexistent (voir à ce propos X. Martin-Dupont, 1995) qui permettent soit des analyses très précises de ce qui se joue quasi physiologiquement dans la gestuelle, soit des typologies fonctionnelles éclairant les phénomènes de circulation de sens. L'hypothèse sous-jacente à cette communication est que la notation kinésiologique constitue précisément une base à même de résoudre certaines dichotomies fortes dans les classes fonctionnelles tout en offrant un lieu à l'étude de phénomènes relevant de manifestations très ténues parce qu'extrêmement rapides. Le but premier de ce travail est d'effectuer l'inventaire des contraintes physiologiques pesant structurellement sur toutes les configurations gestuelles et, surtout, d'en exposer plus l'idée que la liste. La dynamique des mouvements obéit également à certaines règles circonscrivant des enchaînements gestuels potentiels parce qu'elles imposent des priorités consécutives aux configurations en cours des trois segments - main, avant-bras et bras.

2. Présentation des degrés de liberté pour chaque segment Les degrés de liberté qui sont présentés constituent l'ensemble des mouvements possibles de la gestuelle au point qu'on peut dire que leurs combinaisons révèlent le substratum de la gestualité qu'elle soit instrumentale, conversationnelle ou relevant de la langue des signes.

Dominique

346

Abduction

Mouvements de la main selon les trois dimension: AB D/A DD. FLEX'EXTEN et PRO/SUPi

Boutet

Les contraintes physiologiques

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Nous retenons, donc, dans cette analyse trois segments, la main, l'avant-bras et le bras, pour lesquels nous présentons les degrés de liberté d'un point de vue physiologique. Il s'agit plus ici d'une présentation que de définitions (pour plus de détails: I.A. Kapandji 1987), les aspects purement musculaires ne seront pas étudiés. La main possède trois types de mouvements: ABDuction/ADDuction, FLEXion/EXTENsion et PROnation/SUPInation (voir schéma 1). On dénombre deux degrés de liberté pour l'avant-bras: la FLEXion/EXTENsion et la ROTation INTérieure/ROTation EXTérieure*. Enfin le bras permet d'effectuer une FLEXion/EXTENsion, une FLEXion/EXTENsion HORIZontale et une ABDuction/ADDuction. L'ABDuction du bras est définie comme l'éloignement par rapport à la symétrie du corps, l'ADDuction comme son rapprochement; nous avons gardé la terminologie en changeant de repère: l'abduction du bras s'effectue toujours dans un plan frontal selon un axe antéro-postérieur mais, vue de face, tourne dans le sens des aiguilles d'une montre, tandis que l'ADD va dans l'autre sens. La même ambiguité émerge d'un mouvement de ROT INT/EXT suivant qu'il apparaît quand le bras est en FLEX max ou en ABD max (bras en l'air): la ROT INT, par exemple, n'aura pas visuellement la même orientation (schéma 2).

On voit par là que la description d'une position en termes physiologiques peut s'avérer délicate et n'est finalement possible, dans certains cas, qu'en considérant la dynamique du mouvement. L'amplitude des degrés de liberté, à l'instar des dénominations, n'est pas univoque et dépend de la configuration du segment. Ainsi l'ADD max de la main atteint 45° lorsque celle-ci n'est ni fléchie ni tendue; en revanche, en FLEX max ou en EXTEN max, le mouvement d'adduction ne dépasse pas 10 à 15°. Pour toutes ces raisons, il semble opportun d'étudier les relations tant structurelles que dynamiques qu'entretiennent les types de mouvements d'un segment en „neutralisant" les autres (segments).

3. Relations entre les types de mouvements pour un même segment 3 .1

La main

La main prise isolément présente donc trois degrés de liberté qui ne doivent pas être considérés comme autonomes mais plutôt de manière mécanique, de sorte que les axes qui articulent les

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trois types de mouvements se déplacent et, de perpendiculaires dans l'espace, peuvent glisser au cours d'un geste pour se trouver co-incidents dans un même plan. D e plus, chaque axe ayant des butées articulaires qui n'encadrent pas uniformément le mouvement, l'amplitude peut varier en fonction d'un autre type de mouvement. Ainsi F L E X / E X T E N voit son amplitude réduite quand la main est en PRO, ceci pour des raisons ligamentaires; quoique réel, ce rétrécissement ne semble pas discriminable visuellement. Il n'en va pas de même pour l'abd-adduction dont l'amplitude, visiblement plus ramassée en forte FLEX/EXTEN, est cependant d'autant moins discernable que l'axe autour duquel s'articule cette abd-adduction se superpose à celui de la prono-supination - dont l'amplitude nettement plus grande „écrase visuellement" l'abd-adduction (schéma 3).

Coincidence des Axe abd/add j Axe pro/supi

Axe abd/add

(Positions 1&2: supination. 3: supi et exten.

axes

Schéma 3 4: extension.

Aussi, il ressort d'une position de F L E X / E X T E N max que les mouvements d'ABD/ADD paraissent neutralisés; en fait il n'en est rien, l'abduction et la pronation sont covariantes en E X T E N max (ainsi que ADD et SUPI), en F L E X max les covariations seront donc inversées (ADD avec PRO et A B D avec SUPI). Cette covariation ne devient nécessaire, contrainte physiologiquement, qu'au delà d'une certaine amplitude lors d'un mouvement de pronosupination. Celui-ci rend alors obligatoire la mise e n j e u d'un mouvement ( A B D ou ADD) allant dans la même direction si la main n'était pas déjà dans une position ou un contexte congruent. On peut, à l'opposé, définir des contextes incongrus à un mouvement de pronation (ou supination) sachant qu'il existe deux manières de contourner un tel contexte: aJ revenir à une situation où la co-incidence des axes, que nous avons vue au schéma 3, tend à disparaître par un relâchement de l ' E X T E N max, en l'occurrence par une flexion, ce qui dissocie les deux autres degrés de libertés; b/ accompagner la pronation par un mouvement d ' A B D dans le cas énoncé. L a structure permet donc de recontextualiser physiologiquement des gestes et, pour l'apparition de certains mouvements, d'en inférer des causes en termes de contraintes anatomo-physiologiques en dehors de toute considération sémantique. Ces contraintes structurelles, très prégnantes aux maxima d'amplitudes, „plient" chaque plan positionnel comme un miroir déformant qui n'anamorphoserait presque pas la figure en son centre (la notion d'anamorphose est empruntée à C. Cuxac, 1993). Les déformations sont, de plus, tridimensionnelles et, s'il fallait développer la représentation ci-dessous de la supination vers la pronation, on obtiendrait une structure en mille-feuilles laissant d'une part, au millieu, une zone

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de la gestuelle

d'indépendance structurelle des trois dimensions (degrés de liberté) et, d'autre part, aux extrémités, une inversion des plis accompagnée d'une interdépendance croissante.

Schéma 4: représentation structurelle pour une position de SUPI max.

Schéma 5

Nous verrons plus loin que la zone centrale, apparemment exempte de toute interdépendance à son endroit, ne l'est pas dynamiquement. Le schéma 5 montre pour une position FLEX max (que la main soit ou non en PRO ou en SUPI) qu'un mouvement d'ABD orientera vers une supination ou la renforcera. Un tel renforcement débouche sur un blocage ou sur un transfert du mouvement vers un segment supérieur. En fait, ce type de configuration - pour laquelle deux dimensions à leur amplitude maximum voient le mouvement de troisième dimension, non seulement atteindre la limite physiologique de sa course mais, de plus, peser davantage sur la tension, pourtant déjà présente, de l'une des deux dimensions - semble structurellement prédéterminé vers un transfert du mouvement à l'avant-bras ou au bras. On pourrait ainsi établir en théorie une typologie des configurations et des mouvements associés avec des critères de blocage, de transfert: a/ sur une autre dimension du même segment, b/ vers un autre segment et selon un paramètre de contrainte structurelle. Ce type de travail devrait, en outre, prendre en considération des transferts à rebours, notamment de l'avant-bras sur la main, qui sont eux aussi imposés structurellement.

3.2

L'avant-bras

Contrairement à la main, l'avant-bras ne présente pas de variation d'amplitude pour ses deux dimensions (FLEXavb/EXTENavh et ROT INT/EXT); il semble pourtant que visuellement l'espace atteignable par une rotation diminue à mesure que l'on s'éloigne d'une flexion de 90° (schéma 6), voire que cette rotation est neutralisée en EXTEN1Vb max. En effet, en extension totale, c'est-àdire lorsque l'avant-bras est le long du corps, la rotation de ce segment se traduit, visuellement, par une rotation de la main selon l'axe de la prono-supination. En somme, la rotation de l'avant-

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Schéma 6: représentation de l'espace atteignable par l'avantbras en FLEX et en EXTEN r partir d'une flexion de 90°.

bras est effective mais invisible à son niveau et se découvre au segment inférieur (main) par un mouvement, apparent, de prono-supination, dimension qui garde pourtant toute son autonomie. Dans un contexte de flexion à 90°, la rotation est visuellement à son maximum d'amplitude et son mouvement n'a pas d'impact sur la main. A partir de là, et à mesure que la flexion augmente, une incidence involontaire de la rotation sur la main s'intensifie de manière d'autant plus paradoxale qu'elle n'est pas apparente. Si l'avant-bras droit est en forte FLEXavb, le pouce touchant l'épaule gauche, l'auriculaire étant tourné vers l'avant, et si l'on maintient cette configuration de la main (PRO) tout en effectuant une ROT EXT de l'avant-bras droit - soit un mouvement tel que le pouce est amené face à l'épaule droite - , la main passe alors progressivement en position intermédiaire: il y a eu à son niveau une supination involontaire. Cette fois, contrairement au contexte EXTEN avb max, il n'y a pas eu de mouvement apparent de la main, alors qu'il est effectif. Le couplage intersegmental, visuel ou avéré, de ces deux dimensions, est isomorphe: à la rotation intérieure correspond la pronation et, à l'extérieure, la supination. La structure anatomo-physiologique révèle finalement une morphogénèse des mouvements avec des points de catastrophe au-delà desquels apparaît une espèce d'anastomose de deux segments (R. Thom, 1990). L'effet de cet abouchement n'est pas forcément discriminable visuellement au point que s'y surajoute, transversalement, une anamorphose. Cette anamorphose condamne les prises de données sur la seule base visuelle à ne pas rendre compte de certains mouvements conjoints qui, même comme contexte, peuvent peser sur le geste suivant. Cette notion de contexte initial peut limiter l'amplitude du mouvement d'un segment supérieur. Reprenons l'exemple précédent: en effet, si, au lieu d'une pronation de la main, on a une position initiale de supination (soit l'auriculaire qui touche l'épaule gauche, le pouce étant tourné vers l'avant) la rotation extérieure de l'avant-bras droit sera alors bloquée avant de pouvoir atteindre l'épaule droite. Si le geste doit atteindre une zone spécifique comme „devant l'épaule droite", ce blocage peut initier une compensation (mouvement de pronation) qui rouvrirait l'espace pour une rotation extérieure ou amener un transfert de mouvement sur une autre dimension (EXTEN

aVb)

ou sur un autre segment par une abduction du bras. Ces mouvements de compensation ou de transfert que l'on considère trop souvent comme traits définitoires du geste, pourraient n'être, en fait, qu'un avatar contextuel.

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3.3

Le bras

L'étude de ce segment, comme celle des deux premiers, respecte une démarche de neutralisation pour laquelle la main et l'avant-bras restent, a priori,

dans la même configuration au cours des

mouvements. En dehors de considérations d'amplitudes des trois dimensions du bras, qui débordent largement le cadre de la gestuelle conversationnelle, nous illustrerons les rapports entre les dimensions et entre les segments par des mouvements, qui, bien que peu naturels révèlent la morphologie du bras. Dans un souci de lisibilité, seul le mouvement d'abd-adduction retiendra notre attention. Le paradoxe de Codman permet de comprendre ce qui se joue dans la structure de ce segment et, suivant les configurations, par anastomose des autres segments, rend manifeste les notions de disponibilité, de blocage, de transfert et de compensation; aussi servira-til de fil conducteur. L'énoncé de ce paradoxe est simple: soit une position de départ caractérisée par le bras et l'avant-bras le long du corps, la main étant dans une configuration intermédiaire (pouce dirigé vers l'avant, auriculaire vers l'arrière), si on effectue une abduction du bras de 180° (bras en l'air) et qu'on le ramène dans la position initiale par une extension de celui-ci de 180°, le pouce est alors dirigé vers l'arrière, l'auriculaire étant tourné vers l'avant. Une rotation interne et une pronation conjointes et involontaires ont été produites lors de l'abduction du bras. Il y a donc un transfert structurel du mouvement sur les deux autres segments alors que, visuellement, ils demeurent stables et inchangés. Si le transfert structurel dépend du bras, on devrait pouvoir bloquer le mouvement par un contexte initial pour lequel aucune rotation interne et ni aucune pronation ne seraient possibles; il suffit de partir d'une position où le pouce est en arrière. De fait, l'abduction possible ne dépasse pas 80° et se bloque; on peut dire que la configuration de l'avantbras et de la main n'étaient pas disponibles pour un tel mouvement et, qu'en l'absence de compensation par une rotation externe due au blocage, le mouvement s'arrête. Deux modalités s'attachent à la compensation due à un blocage: l'une, partielle, n'ouvre pas totalement l'amplitude de l'abduction, l'autre, totale, laisse toute lattitude au mouvement, qu'il soit ou non effectué. Ces modalités s'appliquent également au transfert structurel de mouvement; s'il est total, il ne bloque pas le mouvement, s'il est partiel, l'abduction sera bloquée - à moins que le blocage ne soit partiellement compensé par une flexion horizontale portant le bras vers l'avant. La qualification différente de compensation ou de transfert, qui est vue par rapport à un blocage ou à un mouvement, permet de relier le geste précédent à celui en cours par le biais du contexte et ce, quelle que soit l'issue du mouvement. Ces notions s'appliquent de la même façon aux autres segments dont la morphologie, parce que différente, n'entraînera pas des effets identiques selon leurs configurations. Afin d'illustrer ce point, un exemple de geste (schéma 7) montrera la complémentarité entre les dynamiques structurelle et directionnelle. La position de départ (bras le long du corps, avantbras en flexion à 90° et en légère rotation intérieure, la main en légère pronation) voit une abduction du bras avec une petite rotation extérieure de l'avant-bras que l'on peut qualifier de transfert partiel du mouvement provenant du bras. Ce transfert, parce que partiel, est donc

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insuffisant, et bloque finalement le bras; cela est compensé totalement par une extension de l'index à partir de laquelle une série de transferts directionnels (doigt vers la main, vers l'avantbras et vers le bras) débloque ou plutôt compense totalement le blocage. Sans rentrer dans des considérations sur l'ordre - structurel ou directionnel - que nous verrons plus loin, notons toutefois, cette chose assez remarquable, qu'un mouvement d'un doigt, par son orientation, peut débloquer un segment sans grand rapport musculaire.

Le blocage, une fois levé, n'empêche pas que l'avant-bras, par une rotation intérieure qui n'affecterait pas la configuration du bras, puisse atteindre une zone se situant en haut et à gauche sur la dernière image de la séquence précédente. Dans cet exemple, tout se passe comme si, engagé dynamiquement dans un chemin (abduction) à partir d'un contexte défini, une zone spatiale lui était momentanément interdite mais potentiellement atteignable par un blocage ou un changement de direction du bras ouvrant, ainsi, un univers de possibles. Cette éventualité montre là que l'analyse de la gestuelle en termes topologiques ne peut faire l'économie d'une étude morphologique préalable dont deux aspects apparaissent: l'un structurel et l'autre dynamique plus lié à des facteurs musculaires.

4.

Dynamique du mouvement

L'aspect dynamique du mouvement oblige à envisager le mode temporel de son exécution. Trois traits pertinents émergent d'une réalité évidemment moins cloisonnée: deux traits décrivent les mouvements (ainsi que les blocages) en termes de simultanéité et de successivité, le troisième, plus prescriptif, - l'anticipation - permet de relier temporellement deux modes d'actions mouvements et/ou blocages. Par simultanéité il faut entendre le chevauchement temporel de deux mouvements ou plus, même s'ils ne commencent ou ne finissent pas au même instant. On verra que ce trait rend compte indirectement de la quantité de mouvement pour les dimensions mises en action, de l'orientation qui en résulte, et de l'impact structura-dynamique sur le segment en question et sur les autres.

Les contraintes physiologiques de la gestuelle

353 Le schéma 8 en illustre le fonctionnement. Partons d'une situation où la main est en pronation max et sur laquelle un double mouvement simultané de FLEX, ADD apparaît; l'ordre d'apparition et/ou la quantité de mouvement détermineront la conséquence sur la troisième dimension. Si, malgré la simultanéité et à quantité de mouvement égal, l'ordre FLEX puis ADD ressort d'un léger décalage, l'impact structuro-dynamique ira dans le sens d'un renforcement de la pronation et, nous l'avons vu, vers un autre segment par transfert.

L'ordre inverse, ADD puis FLEX, ouvrira vers une supination. Le schéma, valable pour une position de supination max, affecte de manière identique des positions initiales dont l'amplitude n'est pas maximale. Cet aspect dynamique se surajoute à la figure du schéma 4 et la tord à ses extrémités vers la pronation ou la supination selon l'ordre des mouvements. Il faut noter que ces inclinaisons, concernant également la partie centrale de la figure, s'appliquent, par extension, suivant les mêmes règles, à toute la dimension de prono-supination et, de ce fait discrétisent ces types de mouvements sans pour autant décontextualiser leurs effets sur d'autres segments et finalement leurs rendus visuel. Dans le cas où la flexion/extension à son maximum reste inchangée pendant un mouvement mettant en jeu les deux autres dimensions, PRO et ABD par exemple, en position de flexion et pronation, leur apparition ne peut qu'être successive puisqu'ils sont, dans ce contexte, incongrus. La successivité est ici structurellement contrainte, elle peut recouvrer néanmoins une certaine intentionnalité pour un transfert directionnel sur un autre segment. Revenons toutefois au contexte incongru, si cette fois la position initiale est en FLEX et ABD au point qu'elle limite l'amplitude de la pronation et l'empêche d'atteindre un emplacement particulier, on peut analyser le mouvement d'adduction qui précède la pronation comme une anticipation due au blocage qui ne manquerait pas de se produire sinon. Conscient qu'il est périlleux de justifier une analyse de ce qui se passe par un fait qui peut être contingent, l'anticipation ne s'applique, a priori, qu'à des situations pour lesquelles une forte présomption d'ordre structurel et/ou topologique la rende nécessaire. Ces paramètres temporels affectent chaque segment en fonction de leur morphologie, certes, mais aussi en fonction de la direction du segment prépondérant dans un geste soit, le plus souvent, la main. Cet aspect directionnel du mouvement ou du blocage, indéniable pour bon nombre de gestes dont les mouvements résistent à une analyse un tant soit peu contrainte morphologiquement, révèle d'une part un espace libre de toute nécessité physiologique structurelle, d'autre part une utilisation dynamiquement déterminée de celui-ci. Les paramètres temporels, les paramètres d'actions - transfert, compensation et disponibilité - et leurs deux modalités - totale ou partielle - , leurs points d'applications sur tous les segments et selon leurs

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dimensions, les deux variables de mouvement et de blocage avec leurs facteurs - structurels, dynamiques ou directionnels, ouvrent un répertoire desriptif assez large pour noter la gestuelle, et comprendre sur quelles contraintes elle s'appuie. La combinatoire des critères cités ci-dessus dessinerait un inventaire d'unités ou de schèmes théoriques dont il faudrait noter selon les situations et les personnes, l'utilisation, sans doute différente, qui en est faite. A titre d'exemple, voici une partie de la notation d'environ une minute d'un corpus étudié avec Anne Lefebvre et Silvana Contento. Le bras droit du locuteur reste pendant toute la séquence le long du corps. Ceci impose une utilisation plus différenciée de l'espace et pousse le gesteur à recourir aux limites morphologiques de la main et de l'avant-bras.

La présence de sa voisine, à gauche, limite la rotation extérieure et, a peut-être un retentissement sur la main (schéma 9). La prise de données figurant au schéma 10, a été effectuée visuellement; aussi est-elle soumise aux déformations de l'anamorphose que nous avons vue. Le mouvement initial est une ABD de la main, le relâchement de la flexion max de celle-ci par une légère extension est corporellement déterminé: il serait bloqué par le thorax sinon. L'abduction est transférée directionnellement et partiellement sur l'avant-bras. Elle se traduit par une rotation extérieure qui, structurellement, impose la supination. Le mouvement de rotation, tel qu'il est noté dans le schéma 10, est inexact: il atteint, en fait, le maximum d'amplitude extérieure en 02'08" 18 puisque le gesteur est encore en FLEXavb max à ce moment là. Il y a, en outre, simultanément au blocage structurel de la rotation, une extension de l'avantbras qui peut être rapprochée, d'une part, de l'extension de la main - dont le blocage volontaire entraînerait un transfert directionnel total simultané sous cette forme d'EXTENaVb - et, d'autre part, du blocage de la rotation extérieure qui serait alors compensée par ce mouvement. On voit qu'un mouvement, dont l'apparition est expliquée par plusieurs facteurs, peut constituer une unité gestuelle dont la direction dans l'espace est déterminée par des facteurs structurodynamiques.

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02'08"11

de la

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gestuelle

02W14

02*08"16

02'08"18

02'08"24

En résumé, deux actions semblent relever d'une certaine intentionalité: l'abduction et le blocage de l'extension de la main; le reste participe évidemment à l'élaboration des signifiants gestuels mais est à voir, finalement, comme des conséquences contextuelles. La combinatoire de l'ensemble des critères énoncés pertinise certains mouvements dans le contexte configurationnel où ils sont effectués et permet d'élaborer une gestuologie essentiellement contextuelle.

Temps : millisecondes

02'C(8"01 B

02'09"01 1

8

Epaule rotation Externe Hexion Coude flex/ext Exteitsioi flexion Poignet fle/cxt

s

Extension Froiiatloii Poignet prono/supi

\

Supinatio: Aiiûucnot Poignet abd'add Adductioi

\

t

/ Schéma 10

/

\ /

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Dominique Boutet

Note * La prono-supination est effectuée tout le long de l'avant-bras et elle est normalement retenue comme étant un mouvement du coude. Nous avons pris le parti de la classer parmi les mouvements de la main parce qu'elle est visible uniquement à ce niveau. La rotation INT/EXT part, en fait, de l'épaule mais est affectée ici au coude pour les mêmes raisons.

Références Cuxac, C. (1993), Iconicité des langues des signes, In: Faits de langues 1, Motivation et iconicité, 47-56. Kapandji, I. A. (1987), Physiologie articulaire tomel, Paris: Maloines. Martin-Dupont, X. (1995), Les modalités d'évaluation objective dans le domaine de la communication non verbale, In: notes et documents LIMSI n° 95-08, CNRS. Thom, R. (1990), Apologie du logos, Paris: Hachette.

Silvana Contento L'idéation gestuelle dans l'interaction verbale

1. Introduction 2. Le contexte de l'idéation 3. Mots et gestes de l'activité discursive 4. Un exemple de syncronisme 5. Remarques conclusives Note Références

1. Introduction Les sciences cognitives recoupent un intérêt toujours plus fort, aujourd'hui, pour les aspects non verbaux de la communication surtout lorsqu'ils sont observés en association aux aspects verbaux. Les implications immédiates pour certaines applications des neurosciences sont évidentes, par exemple, mais cet intérêt va aussi dans le sens d'une possible réponse à une question centrale pour la psychologie cognitive: si l'homme est un élaborateur d'information, quelle relation pouvons-nous trouver entre les différentes formes d'expression symbolique qu'il est capable de représenter, y compris les composantes linguistiques? Certaines approches récentes en psycholinguistique, ayant l'objectif d'étudier les structures et les représentations impliquées dans la cognition, semblent aptes à fournir une réponse à cette question.

2. Le contexte de l'idéation Le discours est un phénomène multidimensionnel où la cohérence est maintenue au double niveau: propositionnel et pragmatique. Cette affirmation de Schiffiin (1987) indique que dans l'interaction le sens découle de la structure propositionnelle à travers les inférences exprimées chez les locuteurs par des marques de cohésion, les buts et les intentions à travers lesquels la signification est négociée. Toute échange verbale renvoie à des connaissances et des croyances qui ne sont pas nécessairement verbalisées. Les modalités cognitives (verbales, gestuelles, paralinguistiques) dont le locuteur dispose dans l'interaction face-à-face, ne sont pas autonomes mais participent ensemble à la réalisation du processus communicatif. Dans le processus communicatif les choix linguistiques sont faits à l'intérieur d'un réseau de connexions énonciatives, et d'enchaînements discursifs continus. Nous élaborons des informations sur la base d'intentions en élaborant des symboles que nous transformons en d'autres

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symboles. Quelle relation pouvons-nous voir alors à ce propos entre capacité linguistique et capacité cognitive? L'interprétation de chaque nouvel énoncé exige en temps réel, chez le locuteur, la sélection d'un nouveau contexte. C'est là que se situe la notion de pertinence élaborée par Sperber/Wilson (1986) puisque une information produit des effets contextuels (implications, contradictions) sur la représentation du monde chez l'individu. Le contexte affirment-ils n'est pas donné mais il est activement recherché durant l'échange par les interlocuteurs. C'est dans cette optique que nous lisons l'affirmation de Vion (1995) qui soutient que les éléments contextuels sont de nature conceptuelle. En effet le processus communicatif n'est pas simplement la somme de plusieurs messages. D implique de la part des locuteurs l'élaboration complexe de plusieurs niveaux d'élaboration inférentiels. Il est d'usage de considérer l'analyse du discours en tant qu'analyse d'un texte où les différents aspects grammaticaux, sémantiques et pragmatiques se superposent l'un à l'autre de façon linéaire. Cependant la structure prosodique, la structure du tour de parole et la structure grammaticale participent également à la construction de l'interaction. C'est dans ce sens que Gumperz (1992) parle des effets de la contextualisation comme d'un travail d'interprétation réciproque entre locuteurs.

3. Mots et gestes de l'activité discursive Dans les situations d'interaction et à fortiori dans les interactions face-à-face, le rôle des indices verbaux, non verbaux, paralinguistiques, cinésiques, proxémiques, varie, en effet, en fonction du contexte de communication dans lequel se produit l'interaction: lieu, situation, relation. Si le dialogue est une interaction nous voudrions souligner donc que le verbal et le non verbal ne sont pas des canaux expressifs parallèles. Ds ne peuvent par conséquent pas être analysés séparément. Pourtant il n'est pas rare de considérer le paraverbal comme canal privilégié de l'activité émotionnelle. Nous soutenons, ici, au contraire, que les gestes, et certains de ceux-ci en particulier, produits au cours de l'interaction, participent à plein titre à la réalisation de la planification linguistique. D est extrêmement difficile de transcrire et de représenter graphiquement toute la complexité du phénomène verbal et gestuel. Les systèmes de notation dont nous disposons finissent par fournir une vision linéaire, séquentielle des séquences conversationnelles (Contento/Stame 1996) alors que le mouvement dans le contexte communicatif est donné aussi bien par les modalités expressives que par les modalités fonctionnelles des canaux impliqués. C'est dans ce sens que nous parlons de syncronisme puisque les aspects prosodiques, sémantiques, pragmatiques se réalisent en même temps aussi bien dans ce qui est verbal que dans ce qui est non-verbal. Les microséquences conversationnelles doivent être pour cela considérées comme des unités de sens qui construisent l'interaction entre locuteurs, comme microunités d'action où les gestes représentent un lien entre la capacité conceptuelle et l'habilité linguistique. Kendon (1980) avait déjà formulé l'hypothèse que les mots et les gestes semblent être la manifestation d'un même processus d'énonciation. Une idée se réalise tout aussi bien au niveau des mots que des gestes. Le sens de la structure phrasale de la gesticulation est donc en relation avec la

L'idéation gestuelle dans l'interaction verbale

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structure de la phrase produite verbalement. D'autres études ont été par la suite réalisées sur ce thème (Hargie/Saunders/Dickson 1994). Plus récemment, à propos des gestes du discours certains auteurs (Bavelas/Chovil/Lawrie/Wade 1992) soutiennent que ceux-ci ne sont pas de simples mouvements physiques mais de véritables actes référentiels et proposent une distinction entre „interactive gestures" et „topic gestures", entre gestes qui auraient donc une fonction intrapersonnelle et gestes qui auraient par contre une fonction interpersonnelle. Ces derniers seraient produits pour l'interlocuteur sans pour autant interrompre le flux verbal du discours. Ds auraient principalement le rôle de signaler certaines fonctions relationnelles telles que céder le tour de parole, manifester l'accord ou le désaccord, introduire un nouveau thème. D faut souligner que les gestes examinés n'ont pas d'autonomie de sens comme il serait des mots. Le système de signification des gestes suit celui des mots sans le reproduire. Ce manque d'autonomie implique qu'il est souvent difficile de démarquer la catégorie sémantique ou pragmatique à laquelle appartient le geste. D'après McNeill (1992), cependant, la variable temporelle peut être un bon indicateur de la fonction discursive du geste. Certains gestes plus prosodiques tels que les bâtons seraient rythmés sur un temps à deux mouvements tandis que d'autres gestes tels que les gestes métaphoriques ou les gestes iconiques seraient caractérisés par un rythme à trois temps: préparation/réalisation/retour.

4. Un exemple de syncronisme Nous avons choisi, pour l'occasion, de travailler sur un corpus spontané, produit en situation informelle. D s'agit d'un enregistrement de la durée de 25 minutes*. Les participants à cette conversation sont cinq et le thème qu'ils ont entamé concerne l'alimentation. A l'intérieur de l'enregistrement nous avons sélectionné une microséquence de 43 secondes (de 1 m. 59 s. à 2 m. 42 s.) pour analyser la manière dans laquelle les mots et les gestes du locuteur (L) se syncronisent dans l'articulation du discours. Cette sélection se justifie pour les raisons suivantes: - il s'agit d'une séquence latérale, en termes ethnométhodologiques, complète pour ce qui est du sens, et qui, exploitant l'inférence ,,y'a pas de sucres lents", réalise un discours cohérent du point de vue textuel, comme nous pouvons relever dans la transcription qui suit: 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10

L I L

I L I

*** j'ai pris dix bons kilos **** dans steak salade ya pas de sucres lents et surtout je bois plus avant bof.. un blanc un rosé le client le mec tu sais c'est toi qui l'invite alors... le problème c'est q'si c'est toi qui l'invite le client si tu bois pas., l'aut peut pas boire., is'sent gêné..comme c'est toi qui paye... donc tu peux pas ne pas::::... tu fais venir la guerre du vin... ya des ruses bon..tu bois àfond.. mais c'est difficile bon e:::: ya un super restau un super bar : *** l'alcool c'est cà *** l'alcool c'est çà hein., çà casse hein., ouais ouais çà retient 70% des sucres

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- les gestes produits par le locuteur (L) sont bien visibles et facilement reproduisibles dans l'analyse frame-by-frame ce qui nous a permis de quantifier le nombre de photogrammes qui composent chaque geste de la séquence à travers la digitalisation de l'enregistrement vidéo et sa reproduction à une vitesse de 30 photogrammes par seconde; - le locuteur (L) est fortement impliqué dans ce qu'il dit. H s'agit donc d'un bon exemple naturel à travers lequel vérifier de quelle sorte l'idéation se réalise et se contextualise dans l'interaction d'autant plus qu'il est courant d'observer que la gesticulation augmente lorsque l'on maîtrise bien le sujet dont on parle. La représentation linguistico-communicative est réglée sur un rythme qui est celui du contrôle parallèle des différents plans du discours (idéationnel, communicatif, métacommunicatif) qui expriment à la fois des idées, des connaissances, des relations interpersonnelles. Le locuteur (L) est en train d'expliquer qu'il doit se tenir au régime parce qu'il a pris plus de dix kilos lorsqu'il travaillait dans un bar (01). D n'y travaille plus et il a surtout arrêté de boire (03). Il était auparavant en quelque sorte obligé, avec des iuses parfois, de donner l'exemple pour favoriser la consommation des clients (03-07). Durant l'élocution le locuteur (L) produit des gestes qui modifient profondément le sens du discours tel qu'il serait si nous n'analysions que le contenu verbal. Nous pouvons distinguer trois sortes de gestes produits de la main. H s'agit de la main droite en premier lieu, puis de la main gauche lorsque le locuteur (L) tiendra un verre de la main droite. Certains gestes placent dans le lieu du discours le sujet réel de l'action; d'autres gestes illustrent, du point de vue référentiel, ce qui est dit; d'autres gestes enfin signalent et soulignent le passage d'un thème à l'autre. Le contenu du discours du locuteur (L) a été analysé en tenant compte du rapport entre les mots et les gestes durant l'énonciation. (Tab. 1). Pour ce qui est des gestes nous avons relevé, à quelques photogrammes près, le nombre de photogrammes qui composent chaque séquence gestuelle que nous avons nommé „durée", y compris les faux départs et les répétitions (cf. lignes 4, 14, 20, 21 du Tab. 1); l'orientation du geste lorsqu'il est produit vers le Locuteur (L) ,,L YEAH. {e°,a 6 ,ms 8 ,co',t 1 2 , A ' . B ' . C 1 } Well, I c ' m a THIRD year repr and {r°, e2, a 8 , ms'°, co2, t 13 , A'.B'.C 1 } it, HAS been raised SEVERAL times in the meetings. ... {r2, e1, a 10 , ms12, co2, t1, A'.B'.C 1 }

Note that the entity „the thing" referred to by „it" uttered by participant C in 4 and not referred to by any participant in 5 through 17 is referred to by the weak anaphoric pronoun „it" again in 18 uttered by participant C, although two other competing highly activated entities are present, namely those of „committee" and „meeting", with activation degrees 1 and 2, respectively. For a scheme of the activation degree changes see Figure 1.

Dialogue III

C:

1 2 3

A: C:

4 5

6 VAR A: 7 VAR 8

I c think they,'re TRYING to do as much as they, can once we« say what we„ NEED.

{t1, A1, B1, C 1 } {w', t2. A 1 , B1, C1 >

SURELY

{W' , t 3 , A ' , B 1 , C 1 }

(radiator bangs) Is thisth the NORMAL things which goes on with the radiator r ? YES. YES.

all over the BUILD IN GT do youc mean? YES.

For a scheme of the activation degree changes see Figure 2

{th1, r1, w2, t 4 , A1, B 1 , C 1 } {th1, r1, w 3 , t 5 , A1, B 1 , C 1 } {th',r',w4,t6, A'.B'.C1} {b°, th 1 , r 2 , w5, t 7 , A 1 , B 1 , C 1 } {b°, th 1 , r 3 , w6, t 8 , A 1 , B 1 , C 1 }

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Eva Hajiiovd/Ivana Korbayova/Cieert-Jan Kruijff

Figure J:" Schematic illustration of the changes in activation degrees in Dialogue II. The markers of the entities are the same as in the text of dialogue II. The highest degree of activation (0) is depicted at the left hand side, the lower degrees (1 to 8) successively to the right of it. Degress lower than 8 are not included in the picture. Each line corresponds to the state of activation in the SSK after processing of the respective utterance, i.e., the n-th line represents the state after the utterance of the n-th sentence in the dialogue.

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Figure 2: Schematic illustration of the changes in activation degrees in Dialogue 111. The markers of the entitities are the same as in the text of dialogue III. The highest degree of activation (0) is depicted at the left hand side, the lower degrees (1 to 8) successively to the right of it. Degress lower than 8 are not included in the picture. Each line corresponds to the state of activation in the SSK after processing of the respective utterance, i.e., the n-th line represents the state after the utterance of the n-th sentence in the dialogue.

Dialogue IV B: 1 A: 2 B: 3 4 A: 5 B: 6 A: 7 B: 8 A: 9 B: 10 12 13 A: B: 14

whichj heh ADMITTED it, was VES, OF COURSE

EXACTLY whatj heh HAS done. Het hadn't had any SINCERETY in hish writing» at ALL NO.

Heh'd just played hish CARDSC CAREFULLY. YES.

How can Ih PLEASE these peoplep. YES.

Ih know what THEY, think about various thingst. so, Ih'll show thenip that,'s what Ih (nuclear tone) think

and theyp were NAIVE enough to be taken by it.

{i1, h1, A1, B 1 } {i1, h1, A1, B 1 } {i1, h', A1, B 1 } {w',i 2 , h l , A ' , B ' } {w',i 3 , h1, A'.B 1 } {c°, w2, i4, h1, A1, B 1 } {c°, w3, i5, h ' . A ' . B 1 } { p W . i 6 , h 1 , A1, B 1 } {p',c 4 ,w 5 , i \ h', A1, B 1 } {p°, t', c6, w6, i8, h1, A1, B 1 } {p°, t',c 8 , w7, i9, h1, A1, B 1 } {h°, p°, t1, c10, w8, i10, A ' , B ' } { h ' . p V . c ' 2 , w10, i11, A1, B 1 }

From 8 on speaker B speaks as if he were the person he referred to by „he" in his utterances 1, 3, 4, and 6. The weak pronoun „it" in 14 refers anaphorically to the abstract entity of „showing" introduced in 13.

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Eva Hajiéovà/Ivana Korbayovà/Geert-Jan Kruijff

Notes 1. See (Kruijff/Schaake 1995) for an application of the TFA-based approach in dialogue analysis, and (Kruijffova/HajiSova 1997) for a comparison of the TFA-based approach with the centering theory (Grosz et al. 1995), which offers a similar approach to tracking attention changes in discourse. 2. A cognitively „given" entity can be referred to by a contextually non-bound item if it is being chosen from a set of alternatives. On the other hand, a contextually bound item need not always be coreferential with a co-textual antecedent; it may refer to an entity made salient by the situation of the discourse. 3. For the sake of clarity, we employ the following convention of pronominal reference to the dialogue participants: the pronominal forms „she", „her" are used to refer to the speaker of an utterance, whereas the forms „he", „his" are used for the hearer. 4. It should be emphasized that these values are only tentative and that in a more definite proposal one should work with a wider scale and a more subtle differentiation on it. What is important about these numbers are their relative values: 1 represents activation degree higher than 2 but lower than 0. The niles have been formulated for those entities in the stock of shared knowledge that are referred to by nouns, nominal groups or pronouns; in this stage of investigation we leave aside references to elements such as properties, states and events. 5. For the sake of perspicuity, we work with the essential rules for activation assignments discussed in Hajiiovi (1993). In our current investigation, we have not yet taken into account the amendments concerning activation assignments in sentences with a more complex structure proposed recently by HajiCovd et al. (1995). 6. There are four dialogues presented in the Appendix, which we use as examples demonstrating the phenomena we mention in this Section. Our references to the examples have the form D/U, where D stands for the dialogue number and U stands for the number of utterance within a dialogue. 7. The entities can be concrete or abstract, or entities somewhere in between on the scale of world immanence (as Asher (1993) discusses). They may correspond to objects in „the real world", in some „imaginary world", to concepts in a „mental model", etc. We assume that a participant's cognitive state is structured, but a discussion of the possible structure(s) is beyond the scope of our present paper. 8. Note that dialogue participants do not necessarily share the same situational context, e.g., during a telephone conversation. 9. The notion of SSDK should be understood as an analytical tool which does not bear straight cognitive implications as for the actual existence of suchlike structure. 10. The „fading", „enduring" or „recalling" of the activation degree of a particular entity will correlate with discourse structure. For instance, previous activation degree(s) might be resumed at a boundary of an episode, which appears to be the case in 11/18. 11. The schemes of activation degree changes were drawn using a programme in Borland Delphi made by our colleague, TomiS Holan, whom we wish to thank this way.

References Asher, N. (1993), Referring to Abstract Objects in Discourse, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Grosz, B./Joshi, A./Weinstein, S. (1995), Centering: a Framework for Modeling the Local Coherence of Discourse. In: Computational Linguistics, Vol. 21, No. 2. Hajifova, E. (1987), Focusing - A Meeting Point of Linguistics and Artificial Intelligence. In: Artificial Intelligence: Methodology, Systems, Applications, Jorrand, Ph./Sgurev, V. (eds.), Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., North-Holland, 311-321. Hajiiova, E. (1993), Issues of Sentence Structure and Discourse Patterns. Theoretical and Computational Linguistics, Vol. 2, Prague: Charles University. Hajiiova, E./Vrbovii, J. (1981), On the Salience of the Elements of the Stock of Shared Knowledge, Folia Linguistica 15, 291-303. HajiiovA E./Vibova, J. (1982), On the Role of the Hierarchy of Activation in the Process of Natural Language Understanding. In: Proceedings of Coling 1982, Horecky Jan (ed.), Prague: Academia, 107-113.

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HajiCovA, E./Hoskovec, T./Sgall, P. (1995), Discourse Modelling Based on Hierarchy of Salience. In: Prague Bulletin of Mathematical Linguistics 64, 5-24. Kruijff, G./Schaake, J. (1995), Discerning Relevant Information in Discourses Using TFA. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Recent Advances in Natural Language Processing, Velingrad, Bulgaria, September 1995; also to appear in Recent Advances in Natural Language Processing, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishers. Kruijffova, I./Hajiiova, E. (1997), Topics and Centers: A Comparison of the TFA-Based Approach and the Centering Theory. In: Prague Bulletin of Mathematical Linguistics 67, 25-50. Sgall, P. (1967), Functional Sentence Perspective in a Generative Description. Prague Studies in Mathematical Linguistics, Vol. 2, Prague, 203-225. Sgall, P./Haji£ova, E./Panevova, J. (1986), The Meaning of the Sentence in its Semantic and Pragmatic Aspects. Mey, J.L. (ed.), Dordrecht: Reidel and Prague: Academia. Svartvik, J./Quirk, R. (1980), A Corpus of English Conversation. Lund Studies in English, Schaar, C./Svartvik, J. (eds), Lund: C W K Gleerup.

Acknowledgements This paper is partially based on work sponsored by the U.S. - Czechoslovak Science and Technology Joint fund in co-operation with the U.S. National Foundation and the Czech Ministry of Education under Project Number 920-58. The research work of Ivana Korbayova has been subsidized within the Research Support Scheme of the Open Society Institute, grant N o 66/94.

Thomas Bearth

Focus and Implicatile

1. Knowledge-based vs. interaction-based focus 2. The expression of locative focus in Tura 3. Interactionally vs. descriptively constructed countervalues 4. Cancellation and reinstatement of implicatures 5. Backwards-oriented implications effects 6. Conclusion Notes References Acknowledgements

1. Knowledge-based vs. interaction-based focus One of the features distinguishing human language from other information processing systems is its consistent display of what has come to be known as „information structure" (IS). Besides encoding semantico-syntactic roles of constituents as a means of representing notional aspects of states-of-affairs, languages universally possess more or less elaborate systems allowing or obliging speakers to formally differentiate between roles played by constituents as part of the communicative process which takes place between them and their audience. How is this process to be viewed? The answer given to this question will ultimately determine how notions traditionally associated with IS, such as topic and focus, theme and rheme, etc. will be defined and used in metalinguistic descriptive activity. Underlying most current theories of IS is the tacit assumption that the communicative process can be reduced, at least for the purpose of analysis, to a transfer of knowledge - hence the centrality in these theories of notions such as shared knowledge, predictability, etc. In this view, prominently represented in the recent literature by Lambrecht (1994), IS is the linguistic imprint of the speaker's assessment of the degree to which mental representations of knowledge are accessible to the hearer, either as discourse referents or as entities assigned to a specific role in a given predication.1 But we may ask why languages, supposedly instruments of rational cooperative behaviour, should bother with complex formal devices such as focus systems just for encoding in the grammatical structure what speaker and hearer already know independently of it, namely that a particular piece of information occurring as part of a sentence is (in whatever sense) more or less predictable. The following analysis of a sample of focus constructions in Tura, a Mande language spoken in Western Ivory Coast, starts from a different set of premises, based on the assumption that the appropriate unit for describing IS is the verbal exchange between speakers in dialogue rather than the sentence.2 This dialogue-analytic approach to IS has some far-reaching consequences:

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1. IS, particularly focus, rather than reflecting the speaker's assessment of relative predictability, is associated with the intersubjective validation of competing instantiations of variables. 2. IS, by operating a discrimination between validable and validated entities, rather than being merely a device for organizing and processing mental representations of meaning,3 contributes itself to meaning. Thus focus operations are considered to be, via the construction of „countervalues", an independent source of part of the meaning conveyed by the sentence.4 3. IS-induced countervalues, while being explicable, are not necessarily explicated. This means that the specific contribution of focus to meaning lies in the domain of implicature. Three main categories qualify as possible operands of focus: (i) discourse referents (entities or propositions, cf. Lambrecht (1994, 270)), (ii) truth values, (iii) and implicatures.5

2. The expression of locative focus in Tura Table 1 presents the sample which will serve as basis for the discussion of focus in Tura. All Tura sentences in column B are variants of a statement to the effect that at the moment of speaking an individual K is located at a place L presumed to be intersubjectively identifiable by means of the deictic ze „here". All utterances are affirmative responses6 by a speaker B to some antecedent move attributed to an inquirer A, and exemplified in column A. The translation of B's answers in column C uses small capitals for indicating rough IS equivalents in English. Underlying the alternants (4-9) is the question Where is K? Their invariant contribution to the dialogue is to assign the correct value ze „here" to a place variable XL. By comparison, the variable underlying alternants (1-3) is a property of the location, K filling in the missing value. K stands for kumana „ subprefect", a term borrowed from colonial French „commandant" which in contemporary Tura denotes the top government officer of a subdistrict. In everyday usage, kumana carries a presupposition of uniqueness of reference from which a constraint of uniqueness of location follows: a unique individual can only be located at one place at a given time. This imposes an a priori restriction on the range of focus options in that it precludes the assignment of multiple values to XL. The extension of ze „here" is defined (i) by the general condition that the spatial domain to which it refers includes the locus of the speaker, and (ii) by the specific discourse setting. In (12), ze is taken to refer to a town through which the inquirer happens to travel, in (3-9), to the premises of the subprefecture where the exchange takes place and where K's office is located. In those cases in which some contrast between locations comes into play, i.e. in (6), (7), and (9), ze narrows down to a part of the premises, e.g. a particular office room in the administrative complex. Examples (4-9) are tokens of an informal service encounter between a visitor A who comes to see K at his office, and an employee B of the subprefecture. A and B's mutually recognized roles are, respectively, that of an inquirer (A) manifestly7 seeking admittance to K, and that of an intermediary (B) who by virtue of his office holds information vital for A's purpose.

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A: MINIMAL CO(N)TEXT/ Question to which the Tura sentence could be the answer

B: TURA EQUIVALENT of B's answer: "The subprefect is here."

(1) „Is this an important place?"

(lin,) kûmânâ ké zé

(2) „Is there a K in this town?"

(lin,) kûmânâ ké zé

C: TRANSLATION of B's answer

„(Yes,) THERE IS A

SUBPR.

HERE."

„(Yes,) there IS a s/pr. here."

(3) [A wants to see an official - prefect or subprefect.]

kùmânâ ké zé

„The

(4) [A coming to see K:] „Where is K?"

kûmânâ ké zé

„The subprefect is HERE."

(5) [A asks to see K. Bi says that K is not here: ... B2 corrects this: ...]

B i : kûmânâ àa zé B2: ââo, kûmânâ ké zé

SUBPREFECT is

here."

Bi: „The subpr. is NOT here." B2: „Yes, the subpr. IS here."

(6) [A is about to enter the wrong door.]

kûmânâ- zé' *vo le

„The subprefect is OVER

(7) [A asks for K.K is here but is busy ]

kûmânâ ké zé-le wo

„The subprefect is HERE (but

(8) [A and/or B had been looking unsuccessfully for K for some time.]

kûmânâ ké zé-le 6à

„HERE he IS, the subprefect."

(9) [A is looking for direction. B points to K's office: ...]

kûmânâ ké zia za

HERE."

„The subprefect is OVER HERE."

Table 1 Since face-to-face encounters are the prevailing mode of interaction between administrators and citizens in rural Africa, it may safely be accepted as pragmatic knowledge shared by both participants that K's physical presence at the office is a necessary condition for A being able to see him. However, the assumption that it is also a sufficient condition for being admitted, need not be shared by both participants, given their respective insider vs. outsider perspectives, and their potentially antagonistic roles. B's choice of focus alternants is not determined so much by shared assumptions as by the speaker's knowledge of A's assumption which B himself may or may not share but to which he accommodates his strategy. B knows that his statement ,,K is here" will be interpreted by A as implicating „A will be able to see K" - a classic instance of a particularized conversational implicature, satisfying the criteria of dependence on the given

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situation, of non-detachability8 and of cancellability (Grice 1978). Given the notorious diversity of phenomena subsumed under the notion of implicature and the variety of implicational effects associated with focus, I shall use the label „standard implicature" (S-implicature) for designating the conversational implicature of the basic, unmarked sentence uttered in a given situation. Syntactically, kumcma is invariably the subject, while ze may be described as a locative predicate (locator). The subject invariably precedes the locator. The predicative marker ke and its alternants - tonal clitic in (6), negator in (5/Bi) - are truth value operators, not copulas. Sentence alternants are distinguished on the basis of constituent focus marking. The unmarked alternant occurs in (1-5), alternants marked for locative focus - henceforth F-alternants - in (68). Tura distinguishes two types of constituent focus marking. The strongly grammaticalized type (Heine/Reh 1983) - F1 - is characterized by complex marking of the sentence structure as in (6): replacement of the predicative marker ke by a tonal clitic (here Low tone „-"), attachment of the High-mid tonal clitic (') to the focus constituent, and placement of the scope-delimiting marker le in sentence-final positioa The weakly grammaticalized type - F2 - is formed by attaching the scope marker le directly to the F-constituent as in (7) and (8). In (9), the locator position is taken by the derivative zia (ze+za). Zia (za) stands for a class of locatives marked for contrast in a given deictic field; I shall identify the corresponding operation as C-marking. F-constituents other than core arguments or NP complements are licensed via their insertion in a periphrastic template which allows them to be assigned to a noun-like position. Locatives are particular in that they allow two types of periphrasis: predicative periphrasis (6, 7) is constructed with the invariable dummy predicate wo,9 locative periphrasis (8) uses in its place the substitutive locative noun 6a „surface" as a dummy. Predicative periphrasis occurs with both F1 (6) and F2 (7), the occurrence of locative periphrasis is limited to F2 (8). The resulting three-way differentiation is an exclusive property of the locator focus system whose semantic and pragmatic correlates we shall examine in the following sections.

3. Interactionally vs. descriptively constructed countervalues Sentences (1-5) are classic test cases for focus marking. (1) is thetic: the sentence as a whole carries new information. (2) asserts the truth of the proposition expressed in the question; hence its information focus is on the truth value.10 (3) answers the underlying question Who is around?-, it represents a selectional type of subject focus. In (4), the information focus shifts to the locator, the question underlying B's answer being Where is K? (5) illustrates counter-instantiation of a truth value:11 Bi's denial of K's presence is reversed by B 2 's affirmation that K is in fact here. The reader will have noticed that no matter how the information focus is distributed - whether over the whole sentence or over one of its parts, subject, location, or truth value - the variation in relative predictability elicits no corresponding variation in the form of expression of the Tura sentence. Indeed, any suggestion at using one of the F-alternants in the contexts in which (1-4) are uttered is met with outright rejection, or with an insistence that further conditions have to be

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fulfilled for it to become acceptable.12 Moreover, no prosodic feature such as intonation or accent is in any way recurrently associated with the shift in informativity. What then is it that motivates the speaker to replace the unmarked sentence by an F-alternant? And what accounts for his resorting to one specific F-alternant rather than another? Let us look at (6) vs. (9), two sentences illustrating respectively F1-marked and C-marked locators. Both represent instances of contrastive identification of a location: ze is identified as the correct value - the „right door" which leads to K's office - with reference to some other location. In more general terms, both expressions necessarily contain a reference to a dually structured notional domain L (/, I') (cf. Culioli 1995, 93f.) where / - the asserted value - is construed as complement or countervalue13 to some preconstructed value /'. Notwithstanding their identical notional constitution, C-marked and F1-marked locatives are by no means freely interchangeable. F1-marking, but not C-marking, conventionally implicates a divergence between enunciative instances as to the attribution of / and /' to the variable Xl: the assertion by B that I is the correct value for XL carries with it an oblique reference to A's holding some other value /' to be the true value. The referential variable is thus bound by a speaker variable so that a value chosen for the second entails the choice of a corresponding value for the first This allows to clarify what is meant by „interaction-based focus": co-instantiation of enunciative and referential variables is in a sense the very essence of dialogical interaction and, since it is also a necessary correlate of Fl, justifies the latter's description as „interactional". Interactional conditioning of Fl is not limited to locatives. In a context requiring selection of the proper value for the subject as in (3), Fl-marking - which is otherwise rejected - occurs if a discrimination between competing values is involved: following the alternative question (3.1') gbofandma tacm kumcma? „(Is) the prefect or the subprefect (here)?", the subject will be Flmarked as in (3.2') kiimand' ze le „The SUBPREFECT is here". Note that the alternative question word taan is not used for enumerating alternatives but presupposes some misunderstanding or controversy between the participants as to the identification of the proper value. In conversation-pragmatic terms, Fl-marking is a shortcut to a sequence of moves combining the rejection of a wrong value and its replacement by the correct value. Both the rejected and the asserted value are members of the same presupposition set, i.e. of a set of values which, if applied to the same variable in the given situation, may yield a true proposition. If as in (6), the asserted value is the „right door", the rejected value is likely to be (as suggested in col. A) another - the wrong - door. Both moves may be explicated: (6') 1. kumcma- ze' wo le, 2. aa 6ia-le 6a ,,K is here, he is not there" (da 6i+a+le 3s-NEG there + C-marking+F2). Or in reverse order: (6") 2. kumcma aa 6ia-le 6a, 1. e ze' wo le. Both the positive (6.11) and the negative part (6.2') may be substituted for the explicit dual expression, since Fl-marking in (6.11), and the negation coupled with F2-marking in (6.2') have mutually corroborative implicational effects.14 By contrast, there is no presuppositional constraint on the countervalue induced by C-marking (9), except that it has to be a location situated within the currently active deictic field. It serves as an „anchor", a point of reference to which A is supposed to look in order to identify the correct location via a cognitive process of spatial triangulation. C-marking is used to the exclusion of Fl-

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marking in cases like the following: the trajectory of a mask is described from its point of entry in the upper part of the village to a place close to where the conversation is being held in the lower part of the village, using the doubly C-marked (-ya ... -a) compound expression wing-ya zi-a „down here" to identify the latter location. Obviously „upper part" and „lower part" are not competing but co-determinate values; while C-marking is obligatory in such cases, there is no underlying dissension as to which of the locations is the proper value in its respective context .15 F1 -marking and C-marking, while both implying „contrast", represent clearly different grammatical categories:16 F1 represents an operation of resolving controversial assignments of values to a given variable, and C-marking represents deictic triangulation. This characterization, while supported by prototypical occurrences of the two categories, fails however to account for their overlapping use in equally typical cases. Thus in the positive part of the twin expression (6'), Fl-marking and C-marking are equally acceptable: (6'") 1. kumana ke zia za, 2. aa 6ia-le 6a. is here, he is not there." Because (6.2"') refers explicitly to the redirecting operation characteristic of F1-locative marking, it is not sufficient to attribute the use of C-marking instead of Flmarking merely to a subjective nuance in the appreciation of the situation. Levinson's (1979) amended version of the Gricean distinction between conversational and conventional implicature offers a coherent explanation for the partial interchangeability while at the same time allowing to maintain the essential difference between the two categories: where both C-marking and Fl-marking are used interchangeably, the former implicates conversationally what the latter conveys by conventional implicature. It will be noticed, however, that the implicational effects observed so far only concern the domain of locational reference itself and have no bearing whatsoever on the S-implicature.

4. Cancellation and reinstatement of implicatures While in the case of Fl, the positive truth value is included in the presupposition,17 the semantically constitutive characteristic of F2 is the co-instantiation of opposite truth values with alternative instantiations of the variable whose domain is defined by the scope marker „ le ". The crucial point is that not only the negator but also the positive truth value operator if combined with F2 produces an effect of truth value reversal in respect to contextual assumptions. While there is no reason to assume that the resulting countervalues are necessarily generated interactional^ to the extent to which this appears to be the case for Fl, 18 a number of the most characteristic usages of F2 cannot be accounted for without recourse to the notion of implicature. An example taken from outside the locative paradigm will illustrate the effect of F2 on Simplicature: (10) wele ke i gdn „You have wealth (i.e. the prerequisite for paying the brideprice)." Said by a relative (B) to a suitor (A), (10) carries the S-implicature that A should go ahead with his proposal of marriage. F2-marking of wele „wealth" yields the F-alternant (10') wele-le ke i gdn. (10') is congruent with opposite effects on the implicature depending on inversely oriented contextual assumptions: against the background of A's manifestation of doubts

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as to the sufficiency of his qualifications in the eyes of the family of the girl, the effect of (10') is to reinstate or to strengthen the S-implicature (10.11); against the background of A's display of self-assurance based on his material assets, the effect of (10') will be to cancel or at least to weaken the S-implicature (10.2'). In general terms, F2 functions as an inversor whose domain are sets of mutually exclusive referential entities or - as in this case - implicatures. The cancellation of the S-implicature, as illustrated in (10.2'), is conventionally implicated by (7) under the condition that the statement itself is not construable as a countervalue to some previously established pragmatic presupposition (I shall return to this latter case in section 5 below), i.e. that the instantiation itself is uncontroversial, as e.g. if it serves to respond to the question Where is K?, or Is K here? While asserting K's presence on the premises, B rejects at the same time the conclusion he assumes A would have drawn from this fact. Normally, the cancellation will be supported by explicating the fact from which the counter-implicature is being derived and by F1-marking the constituent on whose instantiation the counter-instantiation hinges: (7') 1. kumana ke ze-le wo, 2. ke e yi' gi le ,,K is here, but he is having a nap (but he sleep-Fl

in le) " In conversational terms, (7') represents the same type of dual move as (676")

above: removal of an instantiation/counter-instantiation. The essential difference is that in (6/676"), the domain for which the countervalue is constructed is the locational referent, whereas in (7) it is the S-implicature which is construed as countervalue. A further difference is that the constituent parts (7.1) and (7.2) cannot be permuted: the implicature-cancelling operation obligatorily precedes the complementary act supporting the counter-implicature. At this point it seems in order to briefly evoke the projection problem which arises from the interaction of F-marking with negation. Negation of a statement trivially cancels its Simplicature: (5/Bi) k. aa ze ,,K is not here" (-> A cannot talk to K). F2-marking of the negated predicate in turn cancels the cancellation (or its negative effect): (11) 1. eta ze-le wo, 2. ke a kolem ee' ze le ,„He is not here, but his aid(-Fl) is here' (-> you may see him)". F1 may (i) include the negator in its scope or (ii) be itself included in the latter's scope: i. The negation is embedded in the presupposition (F1 > Neg): (12) wele' eta i gdn le „It is wealth (not some other quality) which you lack." (See (10.1') above for the context.) ii. The following example taken from the author's field diary shows F1 being used in the scope of the negation (Neg > Fl): the landlady announces that hot water has been prepared for him, thereby suggesting that he should now take a shower. Her husband, not wishing to interrupt the conversation, remarks that the water may be too hot. She retorts: (13) aa paiyea

6aale'

wo le ,,It-is-not hot strongly-Fl le." The only motivation for the Fl-marking in (13) is to support the cancelling effect of the negation on the scalar implicature. The general rule is that counter-implicational Fl-marking is carried by that element which in the positive sentence triggers the implicature that is being cancelled by the negation (here 6aale „strongly"). To return to the locative paradigm, one might wonder how to describe the difference between the F-unmarked negative (5/BI) aa ze and the Fl-marked (5') aa ze' wo le ,,He-is-not here-Fl le" - since both not only assert the same state-of-affairs but also carry the same negative implicature.

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The difference - recognized as such by the informants - may be described in terms of a scale of implicational strength: Fl-marking - under given contextual conditions - commits the hearer to drawing the appropriate S-implicature, F2-marking to cancelling it; zero marking, while favouring its validity by default, does not irrevocably commit the speaker to either. This is confirmed by sequency tests. Thus the F-unmarked (7.2") k. ke yi gi

,,K is having a nap" -

implicating that K is not available to visitors - may be followed immediately by (7.3") ... ke maa 16 a zanai „but I will go and wake him up!", thereby cancelling the implicature of (7.2") and reinstating the S-implicature of (7.1). By contrast, the Fl-marked alternant (7.2') e yi' gi le, admits (7.3") only as a non-immediate sequel after some kind of explicit renegotiation.

5. Backwards-oriented implicational effects (8) stands for F2-marking with locative periphrasis. Contrary to (7), (8) has no recognizable effect on S-implicature. From various examples volunteered by the informants, it can be inferred that the prerequisite to (8) is a situation (resulting for instance from an unsuccessful search) where none of the possible values fits - a conclusion which is then reversed by (8). Contrary to (6), the exclusion of the countervalue(s) is not conventionally implied but pragmatically presupposed; hence, contrary to (6), no rejection by the speaker of an assumption held by the hearer as to the proper value is being communicated. What is presupposed is the negative result of „scanning" (Culioli 1995, 140) a set of locations previously considered to be possible values. An essential condition is that the F2-marked value is not a member of this original set but comes to attention only at a second, current stage, by surprise as it were. (For otherwise it could be categorized as an instance of „exhaustive listing focus" which it is clearly not. 19 ) It appears that (8) is constructed as countervalue to a negative implicature derived from previous interaction. The same considerations apply to a class of occurrences of F2 where, in contrast to (8), we have predicative periphrasis as in (7), but which, in contrast to (7), are counter-instanciations in regard to some previously reached conclusion, as in (14) Eric, i ze-le wo a „Eric, you are here, is'nt it?" The addressee of (14) is a youngster who appears on the scene at the very moment when the speaker is about to leave after everybody else has already left the compound. The natural consequence of the latter fact would have been that nobody would be there to watch, a conclusion which is reversed thanks to the counter-evidence stated in (14). What then, generally speaking, is the difference between (8) and (14)? As might be inferred from the choice of locative periphrasis, the corresponding F-operation has in its scope sets of possible locations as is the case in (8). In (14) no other location than ze is taken into consideration. But it appears to be consistent with the recourse to predicative periphrasis that the values that are in the scope of the corresponding F-operation are truth values. Truth value reversal also accounts for the fact that (5/B 2 ) may be replaced by (7) - in the reading of (14) - if B2 reiterates his own previous statement, i.e. performs a so-called 8-operation (Bearth 1993).

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It appears that the counter-implicational reading of (7) discussed in section 4 and the counterevidential reading exemplified in (14) - corresponding to (8) which admits only this second reading - are mirror-images of each other: whereas in (7) the implicature associated with the statement is superseded by a counter-implicature, in (8/14) the statement itself supersedes an implicature derived from prior interaction. In each case, the sequence of operations is the same, but the order of the operands is reversed; one could speak, in the case of (8/14) of a backwardsoriented counter-implicational effect. This also explains why (7), the initial term of the operation, but neither (8) nor (14) which constitute its target, conventionally affect the S-implicature.

6. Conclusion I have based the examination of correlations between focus and implicature on a small sample from Tura, a language in which all focus-marking is morphological. It has been found that while there is no morphologically identifiable focus category uniquely associated with implicature, there is a whole range of clearly definable linguistic operations represented by focus-marking for which there is no independent motivation apart from their implicational or counter-implicational corollaries. It might be objected that if I had used monological texts, e.g. narratives, my conclusions might have been different even for Tura. This is true, but I submit that, while more attention ought indeed to be paid to discourse-genre specific variation of information structure, the interaction-based framework I have used provides a more adequate methodological basis for its study than the presumption of its being essentially a sentential phenomenon. I presume, to the contrary, that its investigation in a dialogue-analytic framework holds a greater promise of gaining new insights relevant to the traditional field than the extension of traditional assumptions holds for understanding its function in dialogue which I consider to be basic. To conclude, it may be worth recalling that Grice, in a less often quoted passage, has clearly pointed to the existence of an intimate relationship between sentence stress and implicature in English (Grice 1978, 121fF.). Thus, notwithstanding typological divergences between focus systems of the world's languages - which would seem to be considerable if one compares Fmarking conventions e.g. in German or English to the „monotony" of sentences (1-5) in Tura - I suspect that some of the observations and hypotheses presented in this paper, particularly on F2marking,20 might contribute towards a better understanding of certain IS-related phenomena in other, not least in European languages.

Notes 1. The need to distinguish these two parameters, the latter of overriding, the former of subsidiary significance for the assignment of focal stress in European languages, is impressingly demonstrated in Lambrecht (1994,

261£f.).

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2. Of course, elements of a dialogue-interactional approach are already evident in earlier work, e.g. in Bolinger's (1952) notion of second instance, in some advanced versions of Functional Sentence Perspective (FSP), and in the heuristic procedure underlying Dik's (1989) focus typology. As Sgall (1991), referring to IS, puts it: „it is important [. ..] to understand the sentence [. ..] as a component part of discourse, which in the general case is not a monologue." Explicit research on IS from a dialogue-analytical perspective (e.g. Hoepelman/Machate 1994), however, is still in its beginnings. 3. Cf. Lambrecht (1994, 5): „discourse pragmatics [of which IS is an essential aspect, TB] is concerned with the question of why one and the same meaning may be expressed by two or more sentence forms." 4. In a similar way, „relational" focus theories, both of generativist (Jacobs 1988, von Stechow 1993) and of functionalist persuasion (Robert 1993), consider (implied) reference to an excluded alternative as a defining characteristic of focus. This view, which is not necessarily based on an explicit dialogue-analytical approach to IS, may be traced back to the notion of „contrastiveness" in Chafe (1976). 5. Implicatures are central to conversational pragmatics - the domain which Lambrecht (1994, 4 f f ) most explicitly excludes from his analysis of IS. His methodological bias against conversational pragmatics leads him to propose a theory of IS that, for all its insights, is deficient in that it misses precisely those parameters which are most crucial for the kind of truly cross-linguistic typology which his book claims to offer. 6. The data on which the following analysis is based have been elicited from and cross-checked with two male Tura speakers, Goh Soupou Mardochée (33) from Kpata and Fan Diomandé (32) from Benomba, to whom I am greatly indebted on account of their patience, resourcefulness and remarkable metalinguistic competence. 7. It is immaterial whether A's intention was made explicit, e.g. by asking a question, or was understood by B on the basis of A's otherwise unmotivated presence, or his obvious behavior (e.g. his directing his steps towards the door which he takes to be the entry to the receptionist's room). This sort of inferences are part of the routine typical of stable institutional settings. 8. I.e. any valid paraphrase of the statement will carry the S-implicature. 9. Derived from the substitutive verb wo „to do" which functions in verbal periphrasis in a way comparable to the English auxiliary verb to do. 10. Polar focus is a morphologically distinct category in some languages, e.g. Aghem (Watters 1979, 169). 11. In Aghem, counter-assertive polar focus is also a morphologically distinct category (Watters 1979, 169). 12. This observation is by no means limited to stative sentences. See Bearth (1992) for several examples from natural dialogue where direct replies to verbal sentences containing explicit content questions (which themselves require F1-morphology) regularly show no focus marking at all. 13. The notion of countervalue denotes a reciprocal relationship between terms. 14. However, contrary to the impression given in Dik's treatment of „replacing focus" (1989, 283), it is not the case that all four variants (6, 6', 6.1', 6.2') are fully representative of each other. There is a significant asymmetry of metapragmatic implicature between the positive and the negative counterpart: The former - if Fl-marked - closes negotiation over the identity of the L-variable, while the latter - if F2-marked - opens it. 15. See Bearth (forthcoming) for a detailed analysis of this and similar examples. 16. This is further confirmed by the fact that C-marked locatives are liable to undergo F-marking of any type under appropriate circumstances. 17. This is morphologically reflected in the replacement of the truth value operator ké by a tonal clitic, and in the assignment of the scope marker le to sentence-final position. - For the negation, embedding is not automatic; see this section, below. 18. Thus interactional divergence is irrelevant to parallel focus (Dik 1989), a type of focus construction which remains outside the scope of this paper. 19. Tests carried out with values compatible with multiple localization (e.g. sickness, wild animals) - where exhaustive listing would therefore constitute a distinctive option - reveal that a special F-marker is required for this purpose: le+ng+do (F2+(of) all+one). e.g. in yaa- zé lengdo' 6á le „Lions (yaa) are only here (of all places)." 20.1 am thinking for instance of phenomena in German which have been variously identified as „precisive focus" (Machate/Hoepelman 1992), ,,L+H-accent" (Uhmann 1991), or ,,1-topicalization" (Jacobs 1982).

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References Beaith, T. (1992), Constituent Structure, Natural Focus Hierarchy and Focus Types in Tura. In: Folia Linguistica 26, 1-2, 75-94. Beaith, T. (1993), Die heuristische Bedeutung des dialoglinguistischen Ansatzes in der Grammatik am Beispiel der Typologie und Verwendung der Antwortpartikeln. In: Löfller, H. et al. (eds.), Dialoganalyse IV (Referate der 4. Arbeitstagung, Basel 1992. Beiträge zur Dialogforschung 4. Teil 1), Tübingen, 23-32. Beaith, T. (1996), The Linguistic Mapping of Space Relations in a West African Highlanders' Idiom. In: Zima, P. (ed.), Space in Languages, Prague 1995, 3-27. Bolinger, D. (1952), Linear modification. In: Publications of the Modern Language Association, 1117-1144. Chafe, W.L. (1976), Givenness, Contrastiveness, Definiteness, Subjects and Topics. In: Li, C.N. (ed.), Subject and Topic, New York, 25-55. Culioli, A. (1995), Cognition and Representation in Linguistic Theory, Amsterdam. Dik, S. (1989), The Theory of Functional Grammar. Part I: The Structure of the Clause (Functional Grammar Series 9), Dordrecht. Grice, H. P. (1978), Further Notes on Logic and Conversation. In: Cole, P. (ed.), Pragmatics (Syntax and Semantics 9), 113-127. Heine, B./Reh, M. (1983), Diachronic Observations on Completive Focus Marking in Some African Languages. In: Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika (Cologne) 5, 7-44. Hoepelman, J./Machate, J. (eds.) (1994), Modellbildung für die Auswertung der Fokusintonation im gesprochenen Dialog (MAFID. Beiträge zur Dialogforschung 7), Tübingen. Jacobs, J. (1982), Syntax und Semantik der Negation im Deutschen. München. Jacobs, J. (1988), Fokus-Hintergrund-Gliedening und Grammatik. In: Altmann, H. (ed.), Intonationsforschungen, Tübingen, 89-134. Lambrecht, K. (1994), Information Structure and Sentence Form: Topic, Focus, and the Mental Representation of Discourse Referents. London. Levinson, S. (1979), Pragmatics and Social Deixis: Reclaiming the Notion of Conventional Implicature. In: Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistic Society, 206-223. Machate, J./Hoepelman, J. (1992), The Semantics of Focus as a Dialogue Function. In: Jacobs, J. (ed.), Informationsstruktur und Grammatik, Opladen, 89-111. Robert, S. (1993), Structure et sémantique de la focalisation. In: Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris 88, 1, 25-47. Sgall, P. (1991), Focus and the Levels of Language System. In: Journal of Semantics 8, 37-49. Stechow, A. von (1993), Current Issues in the Theoiy of Focus. In: Stechow, A. von/Wunderlich, D. (eds.), Handbook of Semantics, Berlin/New York, 804-825. Uhmann, S. (1991), On the Tonal Disambiguation of Focus Structures. In: Journal of Semantics 8, 219-238. Watters, J.R. (1979), Focus in Aghem. A Study of its Formal Correlates and Typology. In: Hyman, L.M., Aghem Grammatical Structure, Los Angeles, 137-197.

Acknowledgements Research for this contribution was carried out under grant nr. 12-43377.95 from the Swiss National Science Foudation (Topic, Focus and Countervalue - a Discourse Typological Study).

Carla Bazzanella On Context and Dialogue

Introduction 1. Context 1.1 The notion of context 1.2 The components of context 1.3 Given or not given? 2. Context and dialogue 2.1 Uses of context in children's dialogue 2.2 Uses of context in adults' dialogue 3. Conclusion 3 .1 An eclectic view 3 .2 A methodological note Notes References

Introduction The topic of context, a very intriguing notion, has permeated recent work in various fields of research: linguistics, philosophy of language, psychology, sociology, computer sciences. On the one hand, its pervasiveness fascinates scholars, since the context can be held responsible for several linguistic and non-linguistic phenomena. On the other hand, its „elusiveness" (cf. Givon 1989,74) hinders any attempt to classify it and to make it a fixed, unambiguously shared, and directly accessible notion. I will limit myself here - to listing the components of context, as proposed by some scholars (cf. 1.2); - to discussing the two different notions of context considered as „given" or „activated" in the course of the interaction (cf 1.3); -

to sketching the development from the use of context in children's discourse (cf. 2.1.) to adults' discourse (cf. 2.2).

I will conclude by proposing an „eclectic" view of context (cf 3 .1), which is partly given a priori, and partly activated in the course of the interaction. In conclusion, attention will be drawn to some methodological aspects of the transcription conventions of spoken discourse (cf. 3 .2).

Carla Bazzanella

408 1. Context 1.1 The notion of context

Context has attracted the attention of philosophers, linguists, and sociologists (among others), and constitutes the core field of research of pragmaticians, who define pragmatics as „concerned with encoded aspects of context" (Levinson 1983, 32). Furthermore, context seems to be at the cross-roads of the cognitive sciences; as Blakemore (1987,12) states: „[.. .] the questions raised by the role of the context in the utterance interpretation apply to all human information-processing and, therefore, belong not to the theory of grammar or even to a theory of communication, but to a general theory of human cognition." In spite of this privileged situation, context can still be defined, as it was in 1970 by Bar-Hillel, as a „vague concept" which can be resorted to in dliferent perspectives and with different values.

1.2 The components of context Many attempts have been made to list and classify the components of context; the most well-known ones are: the „classical" paper by Malinowski 1923, Lewis 1972's coordinates, the acrostic SPEAKING suggested by Hymes (1974). More recently (1989) Givon subdivided the context into three major foci: a) The generic focus: Shared world and culture;1 b) The deictic focus: Shared speech situation (which includes deixis,2 socio-personal relations,3 and Speech-Act Teleology4); c) The discourse focus: Shared prior text, which includes Overt and covert propositions,5 and meta-propositional modalities.6 Meo 1991 's classification (which outlines, in my opinion, the view of context which is most commonly resorted to, and tacitly assumed) will conclude this sketchy overview.

CONTEXT / LINGUISTIC / VERBAL

\

PARALINGUISTIC

\ EXTRA-LINGUISTIC / INTERNAL

\ EXTERNAL

By „internal context" Meo (1991) means the psychological, cognitive, and experiential context; by „external" he means the space, tense, and culture related to the specific context; but he does not discuss these components specifically.

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To sum up, the task to neatly (if not formally) determining the components of context, if we do not limit ourselves to a generically shared notion, is unavoidably difficult, for two kinds of reason. On the one hand, the instability depends on the complexity and the vagueness of the notion of context. On the other hand, the typical non-exhaustiveness of the taxonomies in pragmatics is somehow „legitimized" in relation to the context. As Givon (1989,76) claims: „One must, finally, own up to the existence of an irreducible residue, a recalcitrant escape clause concerning the open-endedness of,context'. This residue can never be fully captured, however exhaustive and refined one's taxonomy may be."

1.3 Given or not given? It is generally assumed (explicitly or implicitly) that the context is not a matter of choice; in this theoretical framework (cf., e.g. Firth 1957), the context, at any given point in a verbal exchange, is considered to be determined in advance of the comprehension process, and is seen as given. In opposition to this view, ten years ago Sperber/Wilson (1986) have argued for a range of possible contexts; they suggest that the search for relevance constrains the selection of a particular context, which is not uniquely determined: „We have so far suggested that the choice of a context for inferential processes in general, and for comprehension in particular, is partly determined at any given time by the contents of the memory of the deductive device, those of the general-purpose short-term memory store, and those of the encyclopaedia, and by the information that can be immediately picked up from the physical environment. These factors determine not a single context but a range of possible contexts. What determines the selection of a particular context out of that range? Our answer is that the selection of a particular context is determined by the search for relevance." (Sperber/Wilson 1986,141). More recently, the dispute between Derrida (1988) and Searle (1988), which has been extended by Coulter (1994), and further restated by Colebrook/McHoul (1996), contrasts two different concepts of context: for Derrida, the conditions for the possibility of context (purposiveness, respect, communicability, interest, and so on, in their quite different and distinct ways) make any general or a priori determination of context impossible. Searle (1988), by contrast, argues that the „constitutive rules of the context of a speech act can be given analytically and in such a way as to exhaust that context". Hence contexts, for Searle (1988), are determinate by virtue of the specifiability of a rule set. Between these two opposed positions an intermediate will be proposed (cf 3.1); but let us suspend this problem for a while, and come to analyze context and dialogue.

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2. Context and dialogue 2.1 Uses of context in children's dialogue What is, then, the role of context in dialogue? I will start by considering first the children's talk, which is, as everybody knows, more contextbound than that of adults, so much so that Gaskins/Miller/Corsaro (1993) call context and children „interdependent systems". The greater significance of contextual factors when examining children's talk than in adult conversational analysis could be helpful in analyzing the role of context in general. It seems to me that context plays two major roles in children's discourse: on the one hand (on the production level), the child needs it in order to produce her/his utterance/discourse; on the other hand (on the interpretation level), the adult needs it in order to understand the child's utterance/discourse.

2.1.1 The production level The first role of context in children's discourse has to be assigned on the production level, as everybody has experienced when speaking to a child, or hearing a child speaking to somebody else: that is, the context is always referred to in children's discourse, explicitly or implicitly, particularly in the first stages of acquisition. In very young - or in language-impaired - children the topic of „discourse" (which may correspond simply to a „holophrase") is always an object physically present in the direct environment. Furthermore, the topic, selected by the child from the envinronment, is not made explicit, but merely commented upon, e.g. by predicating its size (e.g. „little"), or colour (e.g. „red"). The strict relation to the origo point of deixis (cf. Buhler 1994) allows for the initial „anchored" communication in children.

2.1.2 The interpretation level The second role of context in children's discourse is related to the hermeneutic level, that is to say that the context/situation in which children's utterances occur is always essential for the interpretation of meaning. The majority of the initial productions of children have to be contextualized in order to be understood, both with regard to the topic (what the child is speaking about), and to the assignment of illocutionary force (what kind of speech act the child intended to perform with her/his utterance; in other words, the sense in which the utterance has to be intended). For example, the predication „red" or „little" - which I was talking about before - will be successfully assigned to the intended referent by the caretaker who is present in the physical environment, and can recognize the topic on the basis of the child's gaze and/or gesture. As for the assignment of illocutionary force, while it is true that intonation usually plays a major role in „vehiculating" the illocutionary force (cf. Cresti 1995), it happens that, in the first phases of language acquisition, or in language-impaired children, the context has to be resorted to in order to

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disambiguate the illocutionary force: by uttering „water" with an unmarked prosody, for example, the child can perform different speech acts (request, description, offer, etc.), which are usually prosodically marked. By a simple audio-transcription, if you have an isolated utterance, you would not always be able to recognize the intended meaning. Accordingly to this view, Bamford (1994, 60) speaks of „the greater contextual specificity" in children's discourse, compared to that of adults, and focuses on the common procedure used by caretakers and researchers, who „turn to the context of situation in order to validate an assigned meaning imputed to a child's utterance".

2.1.3 Developmental stages 2.1.3.1 Deictic focus The picture I have roughly painted up to now of the use of context in young children corresponds to the first stage, that is, in Givon 1989's terms, the „deictic focus", or „shared speech situation".

2.1.3.2 Generic focus The following stage in children's development is one which involves another aspect of context, that is the „shared experience", or the „generic focus" ( always in Givon 1989's terms). Halliday 1990 in analyzing „the place of dialogue in children's construction of meaning", brilliantly describes this period when „[...] the basic form of information is turning shared experience into meaning: that is, telling someone something that they already know. [...] Conversation, then, evolves as the joint construal of shared experience, whereby phenomena that are accessible to the consciousness of both parties - things both can see, events both have experienced - are turned dialogically into meanings."

2.1.3.3 Discourse focus The third stage is the discourse focus which „completes", in a sense, the child's acquisition of the possible uses of context (in this case, the linguistic context, or co-text). Anaphora, connectives, and hypotaxis slowly appear, in a kind of common progression. With regard to connectives, the following order, apparently related to cognitive universals, seems to be respected in the tested languages: additive, temporal, causal, adversative, final, hypothetical, concessive (cf. KailAVeissenborn 1991). But I cannot dwell on this point here. One could sum up the development of the uses of context in children's language with the following scale: a) The deictic focus;

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412 b) The generic focus; c) The discourse focus.

In a) children are bound to the present situation, and to literal meaning; with b) they widen their reference to shared knowledge, and can understand non-literal meaning; with c) they acquire metalinguistic competence and some textual and meta-textual devices. Of course this proposed scalarity is somewhat „forced", in the sense that the steps are not so neatly delimited, not distant one from another, and not rigidly sequential in every respect. To conclude this section, the significance of context for the children seems to be well exemplified in this amazing short dialogue between a 5 year-old child, who happens to have a cat and a little bird, and an adult: A. What's your cat's name? C. Titti. A. And your little bird's name? C. Titti. A. Titti, as well? Isn't that confusing? C. What do you mean? How could I confuse a cat with a bird?

For the child, the context is always there, with the real cat and the real bird, which cannot be confused, in spite of the fact that their name (that is the Fregean „Sinn") is the same. The adult's problem (that is to confuse two different things which have the same name) is even not recognized by the child.

2.2 Uses of context in adults' dialogue 2.2.1 Interaction of foci If the boundaries between the three foci (i.e. deictic focus, generic focus, discourse focus) are already blurred in children's language, as I said before, in adults' language the three foci interact together, although in different ways, according to the specific task, kind of production, and other parameters (for example age: elderly people seem to resort mainly to the deictic and generic focus strategy, and to limit the discourse focus to the minimum). If we take a typical face-to-face interaction into accounts, interlocutors would usually rely more on the shared speech situation than in a written dialogue (where the discourse focus and the textual macro-structure prevail). But how could we deal with e-mail, for example, where features of written channel interact with features typical of the oral dialogue? It is not the single element which plays the concerto: the music is the collective product of all the instruments, and the analyst has to know and recognize both the single productions (i.e. the different components of context, which are present in any dialogue, although in different forms), and the global one (i.e. the whole production, on our case, the dialogue). In Mey (1993,186)'s words: „[...] any understanding that linguists can hope to obtain of what goes on between people using language is based, necessarily and uniquely, on a correct understanding of the whole context in which the linguistic interaction takes place." But what have we, as analysts, to take for „the whole context"?

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2.2.2 A „dynamic" view of context If we stick to the obvious truth that dialogue, like other forms of interaction, is dynamic in its development (cf. Markova/Foppa 1990), it seems indisputable that the context in which it occurs has to be considered in a dynamic view. Let me quote an example taken from Mey (1993):

(Two linguists, call them Jacob and Mark, are coming out of a lecture hall at a university which is neither's home territory, but where Jacob has been before; so he thinks he knows the campus, more or less) Jacob: Do you know the way back to the dining hall? We can go in my car. (Mark gets into the car, after the first turn, he starts giving directions, which greatly amazes Jacob, and irritates him a little - he was under the impression that he needed to guide the other, not the other way round. After several more turns - which Jacob is taking at greater and greater speeds, so the other doesn 't get a chance to interfere - Mark says:) Marie: Oh, I thought you didn't know the way to the campus. (To which Jacob replies:) Jacob: I thought you didn't know! (whereupon they both start laughing).

In a case like this, the classical concept of,context' as „that which has been the case up to and including the present moment" makes no sense; it offers no way in which the original utterance. ,Do you know the way back to the dining hall?' can be interpreted correctly. Clearly, Mark takes Jacob's utterance not as a ,real' question, but as a ,pre-request'. Jacob, on the other hand, who really wanted to know if Mark was familiar with the campus, because otherwise he wanted to give him directions, or a ride, doesn't understand the other's reaction: giving directions makes no sense if you don't know where you're going. The moment the situation is resolved, we can look back and understand what has happened: but the ,illocutionary force' of the first utterance was not a thing that could be .predicted' on the basis of what had happened before. Moreover, such a concept of,context', if established independently of the ongoing interaction between the interlocutors, is completely useless: it is precisely the dynamic development of the conversation that gives us the clue to understanding. Such a development cannot be predicted, as it depends entirely on the individuals and their individual choices at every moment." Let me go then to my - provisional - conclusions and proposal, where I try to solve the puzzle

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3. Conclusion 3.1 An eclectic view An eclectic proposal has been advanced by Bazzanella (1994) with regard to the „dilemma" which I labelled „ given or not given", when I touched on it earlier (cf. 1.3). In my opinion, the two poles, or animae of the „dilemma" can be reconciled: On the one hand, some sociolinguistic parameters (such as the age, and the status of the participants to the interaction), and the kind of interaction are taken as given and producing foreseeable contextual effects; on the other hand, other components of the context which are relevant to the transaction (that is Givon 1989's deictic focus, and the elements which happen to trigger inferences and implicatures) have to be considered as activated during the interaction. The speaker's meaning (cf Grice 1989) becomes accessible to the interlocutor via the context, which helps in going beyond the literal meaning and grasping implicatures, in disambiguating ambiguous words or utterances, and in solving misunderstandings. As Sperber/Wilson (1986,141) state: „[...] once the determination of a context is seen as a matter of choice and as a part of the interpretation process itself, it seems reasonable to assume that such extensions take place when they appear to be needed - and only then". The proposed „mixture" between given (or „encoded") components of context and activated ones might thus enrich the view according to which the relevant context for communication „is an interactive product, to which both mind and environment contribute in liberal measures." (Givon 1989,74).

3.2 A methodological note I would like to conclude with a small methodological note, which may seem trivial, but, in my opinion, can improve the transcription of oral dialogues, both adults' and children's. For as an analyst, one sometimes feels such a lack of contextual cues that one is impeded in understanding. E.g. if a child refers to a book by uttering „aunt", it would be useful to know that it was a present from her/his aunt. In a sense, one has to follow an incremental procedure in order to make explicit the massive implicit meaning which is present in any dialogue: a demanding but necessary task for the analyst. In a way, this is similar to what a caretaker does with an adult who is not familiar with the child, or to what an adult does with a newly-arrived interlocutor (if we are referring to the preceding „co-text"), or with somebody who does not share the same knowledge. In practice, when transcribing we could display at the beginning some contextual information (such as the age of the participants, their mutual relationship, their respective status, the time of the interaction, the physical location, the general goal of the interaction), and subsequently intersperse the text with other contextual clues which become relevant in the course of the interaction, that is not only gestures or proxemic moves (which I have not dealt with for lack of time, but which I consider

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essential for the development and the analysis o f dialogue), but also background information related to the implicit aspects o f ongoing interaction, the ones not accessible to an „external" participant. If w e refer to the CHILDES project, w e could adopt double entries: on the one hand the „header"7; on the other the dependent trier, that is „lines below the main line that contains codes, comments, events and descriptions o f interest to the researcher." (Mac Whinney 1995,12). The „ancillary" information given by the dependent tiers are freely put in by the encoder whenever s/he decides to, but each dependent tier should be used to code consistently for a particular type o f data. Of course, I would suggest „the more the better", even if one has to counterbalance this need with the final readability o f the text. In fact, one can easily get rid o f what one considers superfluous (e.g. by deleting all dependent triers), but one will never be able to recover a piece o f contextual information which has not been encoded: a greater awareness o f contextual features can be useful in every transcription, as a basis for a better interpretation.

Notes 1. „Knowledge of (and beliefs concerning) the so-called real world (including society and culture), assumed by the speaker to be held by the hearer, as member of the same speech community (.culture'), and manifest first and foremost in the commonly-held lexicon. This tacitly subsumes whatever universal constraints that underlie the human mind, including any universal capacities for logical inference. It also subsumes whatever perceptual universals that underlie the human sensory apparatus." (Givôn 1989,74) 2. „The knowledge, shared by the speaker and hearer in a particular speech act and by virtue of being together on the same scene at the same time, of the immediate (,deictic') speech situation. This includes, among others, the shared reference for ,1' and ,you', ,now' and ,then', ,this' and ,that', or ,here' and,there'. " (Givôn 1989,75) 3. „Knowledge, shared by the speaker and hearer, in their respective roles, of their respective socio-personal relation. This includes respective power, status, long-term social goals, obligations, entitlements, needs and expectations, most specifically as they are relevant to the communicative transaction at hand." (Givôn 1989,75). „Knowledge, shared by the speaker and hearer, in their respective roles, of their respective socio-personal relation. This includes respective power, status, long-term social goals, obligations, entitlements, needs and expectations, most specifically as they are relevant to the communicative transaction at hand." (Givôn 1989,75) 4. „Speech-act Teleology: The shifting goals of the communicative transaction, clause by clause, primarily from the speaker's perspective. The more localized, linguistically coded speech act designation of clauses (declarative, interrogative, manipulative, etc.). This may or may not also include the speaker's information-processing goals, such as foregrounding vs. backgrounding, focus, emphasis or contrast, and the designation of important topics." (Givôn 1989,75) 5. „Knowledge, shared by the speaker and hearer in a particular communication transaction, of the specific discourse that has been transacted, in particular the immediately preceding discourse. This includes the specific propositions comprising the uttered text but also whatever other entailed propositions the speaker assumes that the hearer can derive from the text by whatever means." (Givôn 1989,76) 6. „Knowledge, held by the speaker and hearer and shared to various degrees (and not always symmetrically), of the strenght of their respective belief, certainty, evidential support of valuative preferences." (Givon 1989,76) 7. A header is „a line of text that gives information about the participants and the setting. All headers begin with the @ sign (.. .] There are three obligatory headers: @Begin, @Participants, and @End". (MacWhinney 1995,12)

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References Bamford, J. (1994), Repetition in Conversation. In: Quaderni dell'Istituto di Lingue, Siena. Bar-Hillel, Y. (1954), Indexical Expressions. In: MindLXm, 359-379. Bates, E. (1976), Language and Context: the Acquisition of Pragmatics, New York. Bazzanella, C. (1994), Le fecce del parlare. Un approccio pragmatico all'italiano parlato, Firenze. Blakemore, D. ( 1987), Semantic Constraints on Relevance, Oxford. Bühler, K. (1934), Sprachtheorie, Jena. Colebrook, C./McHoul, A. (1996), Interpreting Understanding Context. In: Journal of Pragmatics 25,431-440. Coulter, J. (1994), Is Contextualising Necessarily Interpretive? In: Journal of Pragmatics 21,689-698. Cresti, E. (1995), Speech Acts Units and Informational Units. In: Fava, E. (ed.), Proceedings of the Symposium „Speech Acts and Linguistic Research", Buffalo: State University of New York at Buffalo, 89-107. Derrida, J. (1988), Limited Ine, Northestern. Duranti, A./Goodwin, C. (eds)., (1991), Rethinking Context, Cambridge. Firth, J.R. (1957), Papers in Linguistics, London. Gaskins, S. et al. (1992), Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives in the Interpretative Study of Children. In: Corsaro, W.A./Miller, P.J. (eds.), Interpretative Aproaches to Children Socialization, San Francisco. Givòn, T. (1989), Mind, Code and Context Essays in Pragmatics, Hillsdale. Grice, P. (1993), Studies in the Ways of Words, Cambridge. Halliday, M.A.K. (1990), The Place of Dialogue in Children's Construction of Meaning. In: Stati, S. et al.(eds.), Dialoganalyse m, Tübingen. Hymes, D. (1974), Foundations in Sociolinguistics, Philadelphia. Kail, M./Weissenborn, J. (1991), Conjunctions: Developmental Issues. In: Piéraut Le Bonniec, G./Dolitsky, M. (eds ), Language Bases...Discourse Bases. Some Aspects of Contemporary French-Language Psycholinguistic Research, Amsterdam, 125-142. Levinson, S. C. (1983), Pragmatics, Cambridge. Lewis, D. (1972), General Semantics. In : Davidson, D./Harman, G. (eds.), Semantics of Natural Languages, Dordrecht. Lyons, J. (1981), Language, Meaning, and Context, London. MacWhinney, B. (1995), The CHILDES Project New Jersey. Malinowski, B. (1923), The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Language. In : Ogden, C.K./Richards, I.A. (eds ), The Meaning of Meaning, London, 296-336. Maikova, I./Foppa, K. (eds.) (1990), The Dynamics of Dialogue. New York. McTear, M. (1985), Children's Conversation, Oxford. Meo, 0. (1991), Il contesto. Osservazioni dal punto di vista filosofico, Milano. Mey, L. J. (1993), Pragmatics. An Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell. Searle, J. (1977), Reiterating the Difference: A Reply to Derrida. Glyph I, 198,208; summarized in Derrida 1988. Sperber, D/Wilson, D. (1986), Relevance, Cambridge, Mass.

Jiri Zeman Environment as a Stimulus of Communication

1. Introduction 2. Situational phenomenon 2.1 Intensity of situational phenomenon 2.2 Personality of communicator 3. Situational phenomenon as an organizational feature of dialogue 4. Conclusion Appendix: Original Czech transcripts References

1. Introduction One of the prominent features of any dialogue is its topic development; communicating parties always talk about a topic. This topic, however, need not remain the same for the duration of the dialogue, it may be changed. Where interaction in dialogue is formally arranged in advance, the dialogue consists of a simple repetitive interactive scheme such as „question-answer-response to the answer" in a school dialogue (cf. Dillon 1988). In informal dialogues (i. e. a family discussion, people talking on public transport) the topic development is not formally set in advance; instead, various topics may be introduced, they may become interwoven, interconnected or they may disappear. One of the important aspects of social communication is abstraction, the ability of people to discuss not only matters or situations (situational phenomena) immediately present in an actual communication but also whatever else there is outside this present situation (extra-situational phenomena). The ability to expand on topics beyond the space-time limits of a dialogue is the result of ontogenetic development: studies in developmental psychology show that young children are able to communicate referring only to objects, persons and events immediately present within their scope of perception. The fact that communicators chose as a topic of their dialogue an extra-situational phenomenon does not necessarily mean that at the same time they would not be responding to the actual situation. People are able to divide their attention so that they can communicate discussing extra-situational phenomena while being able to perceive objects and events occurring within their immediate surroundings. So it may happen that a topic of a dialogue may be discontinued, either temporarily or entirely, and replaced with a completely different topic which may be a response to a phenomena within the immediate surroundings of the communicators.

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Whether a situational phenomenon may or may not become a topic of a dialogue is decided mainly by two factors: (a) the intensity with which a situational phenomenon may impose its importance (an unusual or unexpected or unpleasant event and the like) on a communicator's field of perception; and (b) the personality of a communicating party who may decide (according to his/her point of interest, for example) whether a situational phenomenon will become topic of a dialogue without this phenomenon imposing on the communicating party's field of perception. Both factors operate together while one or the other may at any time become dominant.

2. Situational phenomenon In the following section I would like to concentrate on describing the methods by which situational phenomena may become topics of a dialogue and to show what roles the two factors play in this process. This will be shown in dialogues of youngsters on public transport.

2.1 Intensity of situational phenomenon

(1)

A: Here we are going to school again. Last night I didn't do any work at all. (3.0) B: I didn't EITHER. (2.0) A: Why are you shivering? (0.5) B: You can't imagine how COLD I am? (1.5) Maybe I'm catching a flue. (0.5) A: I've already had it. Last week. Monday and Tuesday I was in bed.

(Nb.: for an explanation concerning the symbols used in the transcription of dialogues see Psathas 1995, 70-78. The original Czech transcripts can be found in the Appendix.) The communicators start their dialogue on the topic of school and preparation for classes. In the train compartment it is quite cold because the heating is not working. Communicator B is visibly shivering. The situational phenomena of the cold in the train compartment becomes a topic and by association the subject of „flue" is introduced into the dialogue. In this example communicator B is unable to prevent a non-verbal response to a situational phenomenon which draws the attention of both debaters by the fact that it is obvious and unpleasant (this is fiirther underlined by the fact that neither of the two have taken their coats off after entering the compartment). Thematization of this situational phenomenon is influenced by the level of intensity with which this phenomenon becomes a part of the communicators' field of perception. This category of situational phenomena may include occurrences such as excessive warmth/cold, disturbing sounds (the buzzing of electric lights, rattling doors, etc.), the train suddenly braking, unpleasant surroundings (a dirty compartment), etc. What must be kept in mind here is that for as long as the people in the compartment carry on a communication it is

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highly probable that these phenomena will become topics of dialogue for as long as they remain within the communicators' surroundings. A special case is the following dialogue.

(2)

A: I went to the dance last night. B. Did you? What was it like. A: O. K. (2.0) B: Who with. Frank? A: Yeah. (1.5) But dad took me there in the [car. C: [Good morning? Tickets please. ((A conductor checking the trains tickets.)) You should sign your railway identification card. (3.0) A: ((to B)) Do you have a pen? C: I'll lend you one. (3.0) A: Thank you. C: ((leaves)) (2.5) B: Well, what was the dance like?

The female communicators discuss an extra-situational phenomenon (a dance which girl A went to). When a conductor enters the train compartment the current topic is interrupted and a new topic introduced into the dialogue (a signature on the railway identification card). After the conductor has left the compartment the original topic is resumed. This dialogue is an example of a situation where a situational phenomenon is another person's interruption of the current dialogue; i. e. either a new person interrupts the topic for a specific period of time or introduces a new topic into the dialogue. After the interruption the debaters return to the original topic (as in Dialogue 2) or they may introduce an entirely different topic Similarly, the dialogue might be interrupted by a friend of one of the debaters or another traveller, etc. The essential point is that an interruption by a person entering the current dialogue may result in either a verbal response (a new topic being introduced) or a non-verbal response (the topic is interrupted and communicators resume it only after this person departs); this is different from the case where a specific person within the communicators' field of perception becomes a topic of their dialogue. The intensity of the situational phenomenon may not remain the same for the time in which it affects the perception of the communicators and it may be increased in the moment where it becomes more important to one of the communicators. (3)

A: For specialized texts we do have a textbook, but we don't read it much. B: Well, we're studying some specialist texts too. (2.0) I hope it won't be raining outside. A: Well, the road does look wet, though. (1.5) It must've been raining, unless it still is? (1.0) which would be HOrrible. B: Looking at that house there, it looks as if it's still raining.

The topic of this dialogue between two secondary school female students deals with a study for the school certificate examination which is then interrupted by observing the fact that it is raining outside. Although it may have been raining for the whole time that they have been travelling in

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the train, the topic of rain is introduced only when communicator B is arriving at her destination and the rain then becomes an unpleasant phenomenon to her because she forgot her umbrella. In this category of situational phenomena we may also include other circumstances such as malfunctioning train doors or a person standing in front of those doors, etc. A characteristic feature of these phenomena is that they impose themselves on the field of perception of only some communicators to whom then these phenomena are very likely to become a topic of the discourse.

2.2 Personality of communicator In the three previous dialogues the main reason why a situational phenomenon becomes a topic of the dialogue is the level of intensity with which this phenomenon could impose itself on the field of perception of the communicators; however, in the following examples the main reason for the introduction of a specific topic is the personality of communicator who, out of the many situational phenomena that may draw this person's attention, prefers to introduce the topic momentarily most interesting to him/her. (4)

A: What a GREAT start I've had today. First, I slept in, then I almost missed the bus, and now the train's late? B: What can you expect? on Friday.= A: =That's true. (7.0) B: You've got a new jumper, have you? A: Yeah. (2.0) That's mum's job, she knitted it for me. (1.0) B: It's really NICE. (2.0) It's cotton, isn't it?

On entering a train compartment the girl communicators introduce into their dialogue a topic of an unusual start to the day. After taking their coats off communicator B notices that the girl A has a new jumper and starts admiring it. The topic of the jumper is then further elaborated in their dialogue.

3. Situational phenomenon as an organizational feature of dialogue From the above-mentioned cases it becomes clear that situational phenomena may affect a construction of a dialogue in two ways: (1) they may become the topics of a dialogue further elaborated by the debaters (e. g. as in Dialogue 3); and (2) they may become the topics of a dialogue but by association the debaters may change the topic of their dialogue (e. g. as in Dialogue 1).

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Topics initiated by situational phenomena may be introduced at any stage of a dialogue. Frequently, their main function is to initiate or stimulate continuation of a dialogue after a longer pause after the previous topic was exhausted. (5)

A: If the road's covered with slush like that, it's no good.= B: =Yeah. It's difficult to ride a bike in weather like this. (20.0) A: They're really going for it, aren't they? (2.5) B: I've have heard that somewhere before.

The communicators discuss the topic of bike-riding in bad weather, then they stop their discourse for a while. On the opposite seat other students are preparing for the class, loudly memorizing mathematics formulas. This situational phenomenon is turned by communicator A into a topic and then their dialogue continues discussing the merits and demerits of maths in the school.

4.

Conclusion

Although communicators on public transport may at any time be affected by a large number of situational phenomena, these do not very frequently become the topics of dialogues. In the dialogues studied they constituted, on average, 5% of the overall dialogue time. There were also dialogues in which no such phenomena appeared in their construction at all and, on the other hand, in rare cases they took up to 10% of the dialogue time. This thematization of situational phenomena is an important function involved in the topic development of a dialogue (in this connection we may talk about „the principle of local sensitivity"; cf. Bergmann, 1990). This thematization may then become a stimulus to start a dialogue or to continue it when other topics have been exhausted or to interrupt the silence after the dialogue has stopped. The effect of situational phenomena on the topic development of dialogues is especially typical in informal communications, particularly in so-called phatic communication.

Appendix: Original Czech transcripts Dialogue 1 A: tak zase do Skolyl na dneSek sem sei VÙBEC neucil-l (3.0) B: jà TAky ne::4 (2.0) A: co se tak klepeit (0.5) B: vii jakà je mné ZIMA::t (1.5) tfeba dostanu chfipkul (0.5) A: jà uz ji mèli minuly tydenl v pondélit a v uteryt sem lezell

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Dialogue 2 A: ja sem byla vcera na vcne£ku4B: bylat JAKEJ b y l l A: no::: > (2.0) B: byli ste s fandoui j o : : t A: no::4- (1.5) von mä tarn vodvez [tata4C: [dobry den T jizdenky prosim -> ((kontroluje jizdenky)) TADY se musite podepsati- (3.0) A: ((k B)) nemäs tuzkuT C: ja väm puciml (3.0) A: dekuju4C: ((odchazi)) (2.5) B: jakej byl veneieki

Dialogue 3 A: my mame na odborny texty kni2ku-» ale moc v tom neätemei B: no my präviS odborny texty probirämei (2.0) doufäm ze tady straänä p r s i i A: no je näkä mokrä silnicel (1.5) bud' präelotnebo prsi eäte ted'f (1.0) coz je teda VOtresnyJ* B: podle toho baräkut p r s i l

Dialogue 4 A: no to ten den PEKNE z a i i n ä i räno sem zaspalat pak me mal cm nevzal autobust ted' vlak zpozdenit B: co chceät v patek4= A: =no to je fakt4- (7.0) B: teda ty mää novej svetrl ne:::t A: no::4 (2.0) to mne upletla mamka4- (1.0) B: tenjeKRA:::snej4- (2.0) to je z vlny4- ne:::t

Dialogue 5 A: ale dyä je na silnici bfecka t tak to nestoji za nicl= B: =v takovym poöasi se blbe j e z d i i (20.0) A: ty to v ä l i i c o t (2.5) B: to uz sem nekde slysel^

References Bergmann, J. R. (1990), On the Local Sensitivity of Conversation. In: Markovä, I./Foppa, K. (eds ), The Dynamics of Dialogue, New York/London/Toronto/Sydney/Tokyo/Singapore, 201-226. Dillon, J. T. (ed.) (1988), Questioning and Discussion: A Multidisciplinary Study, Norwood. Psathas, G. (1995), Conversation Analysis. The Study of Talk-in-Interaction, Thousand Oaks/London/New Delhi.

Ileana Vântu

Semantics of the Dialogue

1. Theoretical premises 2. Fumbles 3. Recurrent sequences 4. Unhappy sequences 5. Conclusion Notes References

1. Theoretical premises Our remarks on the semantics of the dialogue concern a corpus of Romanian texts included in the volume Confesiuni violente. Dialoguri eu Constantin Iftime (Violent Confessions. Dialogues with Constantin Iftime), du Style, Bucureçti, 1994, 367 p. The dialogues carry on between two writers, different in age and professional status: the first one, Constantin Iftime, younger and less famous, is the utterer and Nicolae Breban,1 older and famous, the receiver. From the very beginning we point out that we are discussing a limited number of aspects of these dialogues, namely some semantic characteristics interesting any general discussion on dialogue. Our theoretical premises in the analysis are the following: a) the semantics of an utterance is interconnected to its syntax and pragmatics; thus, we accept two previous opinions asserting that any element or relation present in syntax has a correspondent in semantics2 and that pragmatics examine „meaning minus semantics" (cf. Levinson 1983, 31); b) the dialogue has always a transphrastique3 (fr.) character, in spite of the fact that it is oriented or it is free, informal - and then some linguistics call it conversation (cf. Levinson 1983, 284-285; Ionescu-Ruxândoiu 1995, 29; Vântu 1989, 400; Vântu 1992, 243) - or formal; c) the coherence and cohesion of the dialogue, as well as of any set of utterances, have a complex nature: the coherence is, in our opinion, pragmatic and semantic, the cohesion is semantic and syntactic (Vântu 1994a, 110; 1994b, 199-202). Returning to the texts analyzed, we have to mention that they represent a special type of interview, characterized by authors as Henriette Walter as an interview-portrait (fr.) „ou les propos de l'intéressé sont incorporés dans un ensemble d'éléments permettant d'appréhender sa personalité et sa sensibilité" (Walter 1990, 258)- These interviews have, in our opinion, some

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properties in common with the informal dialogues, namely the affirmative form of many turns formulated by the first speaker, the utterer, and the presence of many interactional movements, in the acception of W. Edmondson (1981, 86-89). Our analysis concerns the semantic aspects of the dialogues included in the volume Confesiuni violente (Violent Confessions) that refer to the relations semantics - pragmatics. Thus, from the beginning, we formulate the remark that certain types of sequences have a special importance for the problem mentioned above, namely the relations between semantics and pragmatics. In our opinion these sequences are: 1. those that can be classified in a similar way with the elements called fumbles by W. Edmondson (1981, 153-157); 2. some recurrent sequences and, finally, 3. sequences that can be called unhappy sequences.

2.

Fumbles

The interactional sequences that can be classified in a similar way with the fumbles are represented by means of the following examples, illustrative for the five classes established by W. Edmondson. (In all examples the sign [...] is utilized to indicate that we are abbreviating the text.) a) the first class includes sequences similar to the starters, indicating that the utterer begins his part or that he has a hesitation before expressing a personal opinion: (1)

R U R

- [...] Lumea are nevoie de mari scriitori, nu de oameni indemanatici in politica sau in comer|. - Ne intoarcem la perioada cand Beniuc era foarte puternic. Cine 1-a zgaljait primul? - A fost o chestie simpla. Ceau$escu 1-a dat jos. (p. 70-71)

R U R

- [...] People needs great writers and not persons clever in politics or trading. - We are coming back to the time when Beniuc was very strong. Who has shaked him first? - It was easy. Ceaujescu threw him off.

In the quoted example the sequence starter is ne tntoarcem „we are coming back'. b) the sequences similar to the elements with an explicative function are used by the utterer to indicate that he will formulate an utterance with a certain information. This type of sequences are present both in the turns built by the utterer and by the receiver: (2)

U R U

- Credefi ca aceste mari crime din anii '50, pe care de-abia acuma le aflam.. - Ceausescu le-a Scut publice cum a ajuns la putere. - Vreau sS spun: i se pot imputa conduce™, personal lui Gheorghiu Dej? Nu cumva au fost consecinfele instal&rii unei alte lumi de catre o forji brutal ii din afara? (p.77-78)

U

- D o you think that these big crimes made in the '50'es, crimes that we are informed about right now... - Ceau$escu made them public when he took over the power. - 1 want to say: can be the government charged with them and Gheorghiu Dej personally? It is not possible to consider them consequences of the setting up of a new world imposed by an outside violent force?

R U

Semantics of the Dialogue (3)

U R

U

R

425

- Literatura, deci, in perioada '65-70, s-a bucurat de liberalizara generalá din Románia. De fapt, cum a{i spus, ¡n aceastá perioadá, stánga politicá a cunoscut o legitimare in toatá Europa... - Literatura, ca §i stiinja, ca $i industria, ca $i economía, s-a bucurat de cvasiliberalizarea din politicá. Sau, sá zicem. a profitat de momentul de slábiciune al aparatului politic, (p.141) - In the '65-70 in the literature one could notice the general liberalization present all over Romania. In fact, as you have mentioned, the left side of the political life has been legitimized in the whole Europe. - The literature, as well as the science, the industry, the economics, took advantage of the political quasiliberalization. Or, let say, it took advantage of the weakness of the political system.

The sequences w e are reffering to are vreau sa spun „1 want to say" and sa zicem „let say". c) sequences with a similar function with underscorers, namely elements that underline the topic o f the dialogue or a point o f view proper to the utterer; for example: (4)

R U R R U R

- [...] FScea4 o revista foarte buna. Se ImbrSca foarte bine la Cluj in perioada aceea §i era in discordant cu lumea care se imbrSca prost sau se prefacea ca se ascunde in haine proletare. - Nu era cumva si asta un semn de disidenja? - Nu, asta nu! (p. 124-125) - [...] He was publishing a very good review. Then he was dressing himself very well in Cluj and was in contrast with the people dressed poorly or hidden in proletarian clothes. - This was not a sign of disidence too ? - No, this wasn't!

The sequence that interests us is f / asta „this too". d) sequences with a similar function with elements that flatter, being directed towards the receiver:

(5)

R U R R

U R

- [...] Profesorul meu de la Lugoj, George Oprescu, mi-a recomandat sS inv&f tipologie din proza lui Cehov. Am invijat, mai ales, cum se face un personaj. Lucral eel mai greu din lume... - Ce personaie are Cehov! - F4ri §tiin(a creirii personajelor nu poate exista o opera epicS. (p.65) - [. . .] My teacher from Lugoj, George Oprescu, suggested to me to learn the science of building up characters from Cehov's prose. I learned, especially, how to construct a character. The most difficult thing in the world... - What characters has Cehov! - An epic work can not exist without the science refering to the construction of characters.

It is obvious that in the above-mentioned example the utterer uses the sequences Ce

personaje

are Cehov! „What characters has Cehov!" in order to support the assertions o f the receiver. In an indirect way, the utterer complements the receiver for his assertions, both participants' (to the dialogue) opinions being identical. e) sequences with a similar function with lateral elements, that are not connected to the structure o f the respective dialogue and refer to the concrete data o f the communication, namely space, time, problems interesting the utterer a.s o.

Ileana Vántu

426 (6)

R

U R U

R

U R U

- [ . . . ] N-am intrat direct in lupta politica pentru cä pe mine m-a interesat totdeauna in primul rànd literatura, care mä intereseazä $i astäzi $i pentru care eram singur in aceastä luptä. De fiecare datä cànd mä intorceam in (ara, ìncepeam sä mä uit in oglinda retrovizoare a macinìi. Au fost zeci de nop(i in care am crezut cä vin sä mä ia. §i nimeni nu putea sä-mi garanteze cä nu se va intàmpla asta. - Domnule Breban. inulti intelectuali romàni, de-a lungul istoriei. au aderat la masonerie. Ce stiji de aceastä influentà. la Paris? - Habar n-am. - V-a(i inchipuit vreodatä sä träiji nu la Paris, ci la München? La München s-a stabilii mama dumnea-voasträ. (p.337-338) - [ . . .] I have not engaged myself directly in the political fight because I have been always interested especially in literature, that still interests me and because I was alone in the battle. Every time I was coming back in our country, I was begining to look in the backwards mirror of the car. During tens nights I thought that they are coming to take me up. And nobody could assure me that it is not going to happen. - Mister Breban. in time, many Romanian intelectual persons joined the Freemasonry. What do you know about this influence, in Paris? - I have no idea. - Have you ever imagine to live in München, not in Paris? Your mother settled down in München.

Thus, in this example, both turns refering to the Freemasonry have no semantic connexion neither with the previous nor with the posterior turns included in the dialogue.

3.

Recurrent s e q u e n c e s

A s concerns the recurrent sequences, w e noticed t w o classes o f special interest for our discussion on the relations between semantics and pragmatics in dialogues: the so-called

repairing

s e q u e n c e s and the pre-sequences. The first class, constituted by repairing sequences - in French séquences

réparatoires

as

Marty Laforest ( 1 9 9 2 ) called them - correct, define more accurately or bring nuances to a previous segment o f the respective dialogue. 5 For instance, the following turns are illustrative:

(7)

U R U R

-

La Cap$a6 exista boemá literará? Nu era boemá. Vremea nu permitea a$a ceva. Erau vremuri dure incá. Saracacioase... Sárácácioase. Nu uita cá in '58 Dej a lansat un nou val de arestári dupá Revoluta din Ungaria. (p. 58)

U R U R

-

Was in Capsa Restaurant a bohemian life? No, it was not. There was not the right time for such a thing. We had a hard time those days. A poor time... Poor. Do not forget that in '58 Dej put in motion a new wave of imprisonments after the Hungarian Revolution.

In this example the turn Sárácácioase...

„a poor time..." formulated by the utterer is a repairing

sequence, because it is adding a semantic nuance to the qualification o f a period the speakers are talking about.

Semantics of the Dialogue

All

Regarding the pre-sequences1 we are adopting the opinion of Liliana Ionescu-Ruxândoiu (1995, 39) according to which they can be utilized by the participants (to the dialogue) with the aim to check up the possibility to approach a certain topic. For instance: (8)

R U R

- [ . . . ] El7 ar fi vrut sä flu profesor universitär, medic, eventual ministru... - Sä facefi politicä... - Politicä..Brebanii, to(i, erau PNT-i$ti, iar na$ul meu era senator PNT. (p.35)

R U R

- [...] He would wish me to become professor at the university, physician, even minister... - To make politics... - Politics...The whole Breban family was in PNP [Peasants' National Party] and my godfather was PNP senator.

In this example, it is obvious that the turn formulated by the utterer sa faceti politico „to make politics" constitutes a pre-sequence, in the sense mentioned before.

4. Unhappy sequences The last class of sequences interesting our discussion includes the so-called unhappy sequences. We are suggesting this term in order to designate those sequences of a dialogue that do not generate a linguistic reaction of the utterer or the receiver. We made up this designation having in mind the unhappy speech acts of J.L.Austin.8 The following example is, in our opinion, illustrative: (9)

R U R U R R U R U R

- [...]. Discursurile din ultimii lui9 zece ani erau discursurile unui nebun, ale unui om profund rigid, ale unui om utopic, ale unui luptitor idealist, beat. - Cum a devenit dintr-o data un om inehetat? - Ruptura asta s-a intamplat in '71. - Dar ruptura cu el insu§i? - Nu §tiu asta, Dumnezeu $tie ce s-a inamplat cu el insuji. (p.83) - [ . . . ] In the last ten years his speaches were the speeches of a lunatic, of a deeply rigid person, of an Utopian person, of a drunk idealist fighter. - How did he become suddenly a frozen person? - This break happened in '71. - And the break with himself? - 1 do not know it, God knows what happened with himself.

As one can notice, the turn Cum a devenit dintr-o data un om inghetat! „How did he become suddenly a frozen person?" is not followed by another turn on the same topic. The receiver, namely the writer Breban, acts in such a way as if he would not hear the question of his partner; he went on talking about N. Ceau§escu. Thus, the verbal interaction has some deficiences generated by the absence of a proper answer.

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5. Conclusion Taking into account all the examples mentioned above, we can remark that their structures indicate a deep connection between their semantic and their pragmatic components. This connection constitutes the element that makes these dialogues coherent, in our opinion. The truth of our assertion seems more noticeable for the types of sequences we had taken into consideration, namely sequences with similar functions as the fumbles, repairing sequences, presequences and unhappy sequences. This is possible to notice because all these types of sequences are defined mainly according to the pragmatic elements. As concerns the relations betwen the semantic and the pragmatic components of the analyzed dialogues, at the interpretative level one can mention two different situations. Thus, for the first situation, the interpretation of the sequences that function as starters, explanations, underscorers, as well as the interpretation of the repairing sequences and of the pre-sequences has their semantic elements at the first level. In our opinion, these semantic elements must be understood both by the participants to the dialogue and the readers of the present volume in view to understand their pragmatic functions, too. The second situation is represented by the sequences that flatter, by the marginal ones and by unhappy sequences too. Their interpretation consider the pragmatic elements situated at the first level. They are used in the respective dialogues without being semantically integrated and they indicate that the linguistic interaction goes on. If these sequences would suddenly disappear, then the participants to the dialogue would not change their linguistic behaviour and the readers would have no problems in understanding the respective dialogues. Concluding, we hope that the analysis of the above-mentioned sequences added new nuances in the examination of the relations between semantics and pragmatics.

Notes 1. Nicolae Breban is a famous Romanian writer; he spent his last years in Paris. 2. Cf. Greimas (1966, 117): „Car cette syntaxe restera toujours sémantique, malgré les illusions des logisticiens qui pensent povoir opérer avec des formes sans signification. Nous sommes définitivement enfermés dans notre univers sémantique, et le mieux qu'on puisse faire, c'est encore de prendre conscience de la vision du monde qui s'y trouve impliquée, à la fois comme signification et comme condition de cette signification." 3. Cf. Stati (1990, 14): „Les relations entre les répliques du dialogue sont transphrastiques par excellence." 4. N. Breban refers to the Romanian poet A. Baconsky. 5. Cf. Laforest (1992, 74): „On entend par processus de réparation' toute modification, tout retour sur un segment conversationnel précédemment émis afin de le corriger, le préciser ou le nuancer". 6. Capça is the name of a select restaurant in Bucureçti that used to be, between the first and the second war, the café where the writers met. 7. N. Breban refers to his father. 8. Cf. Austin (1962, 14): „ [...] types of case in which something goes wrong and the act [...] is therefore at least to some extent a failure: the utterance is then, we may say, not indeed false but in general unhappy." (We have utilized the sign [...] to indicate that we made an abréviation.) 9. N. Breban refers to the communist leader of Romanian, Nicolae Ceauçescu.

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References Austin J. L. (1962), How to do Things with Words, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Edmondson, W. (1981), Spoken Discourse. A Model for Analysis, London/New York: Longman. Greimas, A. J. (1966), Sémantique structurale, Paris: PUF. Ionescu-Ruxândoiu, L. (1995), Conversala: structuri çi strategii pentru o pragmatica a românei vorbite, Bucureçti: Edi tura All. Laforest, M. (1992), Le back-channel en situation d'entrevue, CIRAL, Recherches sociolinguistiques 2, Québec: Université aval. Levinson, S. C. (1983), Pragmatics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stati, S. (1990), Le transphrastique, PUF. Vântu, I. (1989), Some Remarks on the Dialogue. In: RRL 5, 400ff. Vântu, I. (1992), Changements de sujet dans un dialogue. In: RRL 4, 243ff. Vântu, I (1994a), „Toamna patriarhului" de G.G. Márquez. Coeren(ä çi coeziune. In: SCL 1-2, 1 lOff. Vântu, I. (1994b), Cohérence et cohésion dans une interview In: RRL 2, 199ff. Walter, H. (1990), L'interview, ou le regne des conventions. In: Stati, S./Weigand, E./Hundsnurscher, F. (eds ), Dialoganalyse III. Referate der 3. Arbeitstagung, Bologna. Teil 1, Tübingen: Niemeyer, 258ff.

Liana Pop

Répliques figées (Entre la lexicologie et le discours)

0. Argument 1. Description modulaire 1.1 Point à la ligne! (Le module répertoire verbal) 1.1.1 N'importe quoi! (Lexique, syntaxe, phonétique) 1.1.2 C 'est la galère! (Sémantique) 1.2 Où tu vas, toi? ((Le module discursif) 1.2.1 Laisse-moi mon air! (L'énonciatif) 1.2.2 Tu vois ce que je veux dire! (Les fonctions relationnelles) 1.2.3 Vous en êtes un autre! (La polyphonie) 1.3 Circulez, y a rien à voir! (Le module situationnel) 1.3.1 Demain, il y a l'école! (La référence) 1.3.2 Je vais te faire voir de quel bois je me chauffe! (Psychologie et interaction) 2. L'interaction des modules 3. A qui le dis-tu? De quelques répliques „méta-" 4. Conclusions Note Références

Index des répliques figées

0. Argument 0.1 Ce qui nous intéresse ici, c'est un type d'expressions figées de type propositionnel (vs expressions de type syntagme, cf. Lyons, 1968/1995), et ce, parce qu'elles concernent en premier lieu une systématique du discours dialogal. Nous avons appelés ces expressions „répliques figées"1. Ces séquences idiomatiques partagent avec les proverbes - autres expressions figées de type propositionnel - les caractéristiques suivantes: celle d'avoir, du point de vue de la forme, une configurationpropositionnelle; celle, du point de vue sémantique, d'appeler, le plus souvent, et au-delà du sens premier, un sens second, figuré et, avec celui-ci, un univers de discours secondaire-, celle d'appeler, au-delà de la complétude grammaticale, une complétude plus ample, de type discursif/textuel; inférer, en d'autres termes, des configurations discursives susceptibles de les intégrer. La spécificité des „répliques figées" par rapport aux proverbes réside dans le marquage essentiellement dialogal des premières (vs un marquage essentiellement monologal des secondes), soit dans la présence de marques d'adresse et, pour la plupart des cas, d'obligation à la réplique, et/ou

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Liana Pop

de marques responsives, et/ou de marques de la subjectivité („expressions" dans le sens de Banfield, 1995); en un mot, de marques dialogales fortes (cf. Pop, 1987). 0.2 La présente étude est une tentative de description de ces phénomènes typiquement dialogaux à travers l'approche modulaire d'analyse du discours proposée par l'école de Genève (cf. Roulet, 1991, 1995). Si certaines voix ont été sceptiques quant à l'opportunité d'application de ce modèle à des „phrases toutes faites" et en dehors de leur emploi énonciatif, nous soutenons quand même que c'est un type d'approche susceptible d'apporter plus de complexité à la description; et que l'objet de notre étude peut être analysé a. comme phénomène discursif systémique (cette étude-ci); b. comme phénomène discursif lié à un contexte singulier. Nous ajoutons aussi que l'approche systémique (cf. a. ci-dessus) par laquelle nous considérons opportun d'entamer ici l'étude de ce phénomène ne peut pas non plus, à notre avis, être une étude hors contexte, car les expressions figées en cause dégagent - automatiquement d'ellesmêmes - , ou appellent - comme on l'a déjà dit - leurs conditions prototypiques d'utilisation (cf. Pop, 1987). 0.3 Notre approche n'est évidemment ici que très partielle, dans le sens où i. elle ne part que d'un corpus inévitablement limité (cf. Ch. Bernet, P. Rézeau, 1989); et ii. elle ne se propose, pour commencer, qu'une approche de type a. (cf. 0.2. ci-dessus).

1. Description modulaire Nous rappelons les modules proposés par Eddy Roulet (1991, 1995) pour une description plus complexe du discours: - le module répertoire verbal, comprenant les sous-modules grapho-phonique, lexical, sémantique et syntaxique; - le module discursif, comprenant les sous-modules suivants: énonciatif, hiérarchique, relationnel, polyphonique, périodique, informationnel, compositionnel; - le module situationnel, décrivant les aspects référentiel, sociologique, psychologique et interactionnel des discours. A part la description successive, suivant un module ou un autre, nous nous sommes proposé, tout comme le conçoit l'analyse genevoise du discours, d'observer dans un deuxième temps les interactions entre les modules. Dans la première démarche, nous allons effectuer l'analyse des répliques figées à travers les modules les plus pertinents pour la perspective lexicale et dialogique qui les caractérise et dans l'intersection desquelles elles se situent.

Répliques figées (Entre la lexicologie et le discours)

433

1.1 Point à la ligne! (Le module répertoire verbal) 1.1.1 N'importe quoi! (Lexique, syntaxe, phonétique) Il s'agit, lexicalement, syntœciquement et phonétiquement d'énoncés à forme fixe, parfois rimée, d'un marquage qui s'est figé, pour désigner tels ou tels actes dialogaux dans le discours, et qui est, dès lors, reconnaissable par les locuteurs en tant que tel. La forme de ces énoncés est plus ou moins structurée/analysable, s'agissant de phrases grammaticales proprement dites (cf. i ci-dessous); à'„expressions" (cf. ii, iii, iv ci-dessous), dans le sens de Banfield (1995); de paires dialogales (cf. v ci-dessous); de „ bouts rimés " (cf. vi ci-dessous): (i) On n 'arrête pas le progrès! (cf. dans l'annexe, la réplique No 155) (ii) N'importe quoi! (110) (iii) Merci, petit Jésus! (124) (iv) Point, c 'est marre! (148) (v) - Quoi de neuf?/- Tout est neuf. (191) (vi) A l'aise. Biaise! (17)

Des degrés de soudure sont évidemment à prendre en considération, à commencer par des répliques très figées (11, 17, 80, 122, 146, 154) et allant jusqu'à des structures qui, s'étant ajouté par exemple des „queues" (79, 82, 172), ont pris un tant soit peu de liberté. 1.1.2

C 'est la galère! (La sémantique)

Sémantiquement, ces énoncés représentent pour la plupart des figures: - des métaphores (1, 99, 158, 188); - des métonymies (133); - des hyperboles (4, 6, 50, 88, 89, 131, 196); - des ironies (8, 11, 49, 59, 85, 86, 93, 95, 110, 116, 120, 143, 147, 155, 182); - des euphémismes (27, 97, 98, 113, 129) etc. Mais comme la forme figée n'implique pas nécessairement des figures, nous avons remarqué, à ce niveau aussi, une gradation quant aux valeurs d'imagé (zéro, faible, fort). Ainsi, en raison de leur forme fixe devenue complètement inexpressive, on pourrait appeler les répliques ne contenant pas de figure des „répliques de bois". La majorité prennent comme référent le cadre communicatif ou les dires-mêmes des interlocuteurs, ce qui leur confère un statut notamment métacommunicatif (cf. 65, 66, 68, 73, 82, 137, 173 etc., et paragraphe 3. ci-dessous). D'autres gardent leur sens propre (11, 19, 24, 42, 49, 55, 63, 125) et représentent des „réponses toutes faites" à certains types d'interventions. Enfin, certaines expressions contiennent des figures, comme par ex. 9, 16, 32, 48, 119, ou renforcent des répliques „plates", par l'ajout d'une „queue" (2, 13, 17, 76, 78, 122, 132, 149, 190). Quant à 30, 146 et 191, elles dépassent le „propositionnel" et sont de vrais

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434

échanges figés (à des degrés divers de figuration). Les figures sont „vives", nouvelles pour la plupart, dans 1, 3, 18, 22, 23, 43, 60, 81, 86, 88, 96, 118, 134, 174, 175, 188). 1.2

Où tu vas, toi? (Le module discursif)

1.2.1 Laisse-moi

mon air! (L'énonciatif)

Du point de vue énonciatif

le marquage indique

des actes dialogaux forts (cf. Pop, 19897) (1, 2, 3, 7, 9, 18, 24 etc.) et ce, par les formes adressées à la 2 e personne ou les injonctions; des actes dialogaux faibles (cf.ibid.) (6, 31, 43, 156, 158 etc.), et ce, de par les marques de la subjectivité (la source énonciative seule) - „expressions" dans le sens de Banfield y incluses. 1.2.2 Tu vois ce que je veux dire? (Les fonctions relationnelles) Le sous-module relationnel,

dans lequel se définissent les types illocutoires et/ou discursifs/

interactifs des actes, nous a révélé le fait que la majorité des énoncés sont des marqueurs d'interventions réactives, questions-relances, confirmations, refus, désaccords, menaces, jurons et insultes, défis, demandes, injonctions, objections, évaluations et de nombreuses expressions d'attitudes notamment négatives. Ceci représente un argument supplémentaire pour considérer ces expressions comme essentiellement dialogales („répliques" dans le sens restreint du terme). Nous y avons également dénombré des interventions initiatives (2, 7, 24, 58, 119, 123, 135 etc.) et de clôture (25, 74, 137, 148 etc.). Quelques actes sont de type interactif,

actes

préparatifs (123, 139), justifications (119) etc. Par leur marquage conventionnalisé, ils infèrent tous un co(n)-texte plus ou moins défini. 1.2.3

Vous en êtes un autre! (La polyphonie)

De par un marquage spécifique, bon nombre des répliques figées peuvent être dites répliques diaphoniques (fortes: 11, 30, 71, 73, 79, 99, 135; moyennes: 3, 31, 36, 85, 138, 176, 196 etc.) et polyphoniques

(reprises faibles: 141, 159, 161, 191). Ces faits de mention inscrivent les répliques

figées dans un double dialogisme: au sens restreint (reprises à l'interlocuteur) et au sens large (reprises à d'autres sources). 1.3

Circulez, y a rien à voir! (Le module situationnel)

1.3.1 Demain,

il y al 'école! (La référence)

Du point de vue référentiel, les répliques figées renvoient - à des références actuelles (celles qui ne recourent pas à des images, mais généralement à la situation de communication) et - à des références secondes (figures), et ce, par une double conceptualisation.

Répliques figées (Entre la lexicologie et le discours)

435

Cette deuxième catégorie ouvre les dialogues naturels vers des espaces référentiels secondaires, ceux où le locuteur ira prendre ses „images". La conceptualisation s'y fait à travers des domaines étrangers, tels: la vie quotidienne', conduite auto: 165, 168; relations adultes-enfants: 125; vestimentation: 35; animaux: 40; fêtes, manèges forains: 116, 150, 169; voyages: 188; conversation: 65, 66, 67, 68, 71, 72, 73, 77, 91, 137, 139, 159, 191; le temps qu'il fait: 60, 144, 171. métiers divers, institutions, école: 30, 74; restauration: 37, 174; le langage publicitaire: 15; le commerce: 28, 176; la boucherie: 18; les casernes: 10, 45, 46, 62, 108; l'aviation: 33; l'église: 47, 126; la poste: 83; la médecine: 96, 100; les jeux de cartes: 43, 180; la navigation: 94; le film, la chanson: 29, 38, 12, 115, 124, 183, 190; la littérature: 75, 193 etc. 1.3.2 Je vais te faire voir de quel bois je me chauffe! (Psychologie et interaction) Dans les modules psychologique et interactionnel sont spécifiées les attitudes des locuteurs, les „places conversationnelles" qu'ils occupent à travers leurs répliques, ainsi que le jeu de leurs „faces". Le corpus nous a révélé quelques places dites „basses" ou „neutres" (10, 41, 45, 49, 84, 160, 185, respectivement 25, 36), mais une prépondérance des places „hautes", issues d'attitudes essentiellement réfutatives, non coopératives (désintérêt, dégoût, énervement), qui sont à la base de refus, de désaccords ou de défis. Cette attitude autoritaire est évidente aussi à travers d'autres types d'actes, notamment négatifs, voire agressifs: menaces (5, 63, 70, 92), injures (53, 64, 71, 87, 135), insultes (11, 63, 66, 133, 135, 161), injonctions diverses (1, 7, 16, 18, 19, 21, 28, 29, 33, 35, 39, 74, 99, 101, 120, 122, 126, 130, 131, 133, 134, 136, 137, 140, 141, 143, 148, 149, 163, 165, 167, 169, 175, 178, 186, 187, 188, 190, 192 etc.); bref, des répliques caractéristiques pour les disputes.

2. L'interaction des modules Les traits que nous avons détachés comme spécifiques des répliques figées interagissent les uns sur les autres. Que les formules de politesse aient perdu toute force communicative est prouvé par les efforts des locuteurs de les remotiver par des emplois ironiques (91, 146, 191); par des ajouts („queues": 13, 17, 78, 89, 101, 106, 122, 132, 149, 183, 190), censés „éveiller" l'interlocuteur (effet psychologique). Ainsi, le transfert métaphorique (module répertoire verbal) n'est pas sans influencer, notamment, la force illocutionnaire ou argumentative (module discursif) des répliques. Les figures sont choisies et/ou renouvelées par les locuteurs afin d'augmenter la force argumentative de leurs énoncés et afin de s'affirmer, dans la situation conversationnelle, face à leurs adversaires.

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D'autre part, on sait que les attitudes non coopératives, voire agressives - attitudes extrêmes, typiques des places hautes (module situationnel) - engendrent des actes agressifs aussi (module discursif).

3. A qui le dis-tu? De quelques répliques „méta-" Nous avons mentionné une catégorie de répliques qui concernent, explicitement en général, les dires de l'interlocuteur. Non figurées pour la plupart, elles sont devenues formules, et ce, par une utilisation répétée. Leur fonction générale est de référer au cadre énonciatif, soit: aux rôles, assumés ou non, dans l'interaction: A qui le dis-tu?, C'est toi qui le dis., C'est celui qui le dit., Ce que j'avais pas dit., Je ne te le fais pas dire. aux présuppositions des dires: Ça va sans dire (,mais ça va mieux en le disant). aux modalités du dire: (J'aime) autant vous le dire., Je ne vous dis/raconte pas., On dira ce qu 'on voudra., Tu sais ce qu 'il te dit le...?, Tu veux que je te le dise? aux côtés focwfo/re/phatique et illocutoire des dires: Ça dit bien ce que ça veut dire.. Ce que j'en dis., C'est pour causer., Comme je te le dis., Textuel., Juste pour dire., Tu vois ce que je veux dire. au polyphonisme dans le dialogue: Ce que j'avais pas dit., On dit ça!, Vous avez dit...? aux quantifications des dires: C 'est le moins qu 'on puisse dire. à Y adéquation du dire et du faire: C 'est plus facile à dire qu 'à faire., etc. Parmi les répliques figées de type méta-, il y en a qui, tout en repoussant littéralement le cadre discursif, acquièrent une fonction réfutative indirecte. C'est le cas de: A qui le dis-tu?, C'est celui qui le dit., C'est toi qui le dis., On dit ça. etc. Ces répliques du „dire" ont pour fonction directe le réglage de la communication, du cadre communicatif en premier lieu; pour fonction indirecte, elles peuvent avoir des fonctions illocutoires ou argumentatives.

4.

Conclusions

La description des „répliques figées" comme phénomène discursif distinct nous a semblé utile, d'un côté pour une partie de la lexicologie, et d'un autre côté, pour la théorie du dialogue. De ce deuxième point de vue, ces expressions peuvent être considérées des marqueurs figés d'actes. En même temps, tout comme les autres expressions figées, ces „phrases" à forme fixe n'excluent pas l'invention: au moment où les locuteurs les trouvent complètement démotivées, ils tentent à les résusciter, à en créer des variantes. Ce qui les particularise des autres groupements phraséologiques, ce sont leurs marqueurs typiquement dialogaux, en plus, un instrumentaire spécifique est réclamé pour leur description.

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Ce que nous avons tenté de faire à travers l'approche modulaire d'analyse du discours, n'a été ici qu'un bref apreçu systémique de ces idiotismes. Il est par ailleurs clair 1. qu'une démarche s'impose pour l'étude du comportement effectif de ces expressions dans le fonctionnement des discours naturels; 2. qu'une étude comparée entre les langues pourrait en révéler d'autres aspects intéressants.

Note 1. „Réplique " pris ici dans son sens large, non technique, d'intervention dans un dialogue.

Références Banfield, A. (1995), Phrases sans paroles. Théorie du récit et du style indirect libre, Paris: Seuil. Bemet, Ch./Rézeau, P. (1989), Dictionnaire du français parlé, Seuil. Lyons, J. (1968/1995), Introducere în lingvistica teoretica, Bucuresti, ES, 1995. Pop, L. (1987), Valences discursives, RRL, XXXII, 4, 377-394. Roulet, E. (1991), Vers une approche modulaire de l'analyse du discours, CLF, 11, 53-81. Roulet, E. (1995), L'analyse du dialogue dans une approche modulaire des structures du discours: l'exemple du discours romanesque, In: Hundschnurscher, F.AVeigand, E. (eds.), Future perspectives of dialogue analysis, Tübingen: Niemeyer (à paraître).

Index des répliques

figées

(1) Laisse-moi mon air ! (2) Ça va comme tu veux? (Ça va?) (3) Où tu vas, toi? (4) C'est l'angoisse! (5) Tu vas savoir/Je vais te faire montrer comment je m'appelle/de quel bois je me chauffe. (6) Ça arrache\/Ç a dégage!/Ça décoi£fe!/Ça déménage! (7) Reste(z) assis! (8) J'ai failli attendre. (9) C'est pour aujourd'hui ou pour demain? (10) Autant pour moi! (11) Vous en êtes un(e) autre. (12) Ça balance! (13) Adieu/Ciao, Berthe! (14) Adieu la valise! (15) Bienvenue au club! (16) Bisque, bisque, (en)rage? Tu bisques, tu rages, tu manges du fromage! (17) A l'aise, Blaise\ (18) Enlevez le boeufl, la vache est pesée)! (19) On boit de bons coups, mais ils sont rares! (20) Bon sang de bois! (21) Bonjour le/la...! (22) T'as le bonjour/bonsoir! (23) Je ne suis pas ta bonne/bonniche! (24) Ferme les yeux et ouvre la bouche! (25) On se téléphone, on se fait une bouffe.

Liana Pop

438 On ne peut rien te/vous cacher. C'est pas un cadeau./C'est pas du gâteau/évident, il faut se le faire! Voyez caisse! On se calme! -(T'es) pas cap\ -Moi pas cap? Ca passe ou ca casse! J'aurais mieux fait de me casser une jambe. Accrochez/Attachez vos ceintures! T'as pas cent balles? T'occupe pas du chapeau de la gamine! C'est la vie de château, pourvu que ça dure! Chaud devant! Ça chauffe\!Çn swingue!/Ça balance! Faites chauffer la colle! J'en parlerai à mon cheval/à. mes lapins./Cause à mon cul, ma tête est malade. On est bien peu de chose tout de même! (Ben) voilà autre chose! Un (deux etc.) de chute\!Un de moins! On fera quelque chose de toi si les petits cochons ne te mangent pas. (Ben) mon colon! ...même combat! Combien de..., mon fils? Ça commence à bien faire!/Ça suffit!/C'est assez! ...connais pas! Je ne connais que ça/qu'lui/qu'elle! Coucou le voilà! (Promis), juré, craché! Crève, salope! (C'est) la crise! Je ne suis pas celle/celui que vous croyez. Que tu crois! T'as qu'à croire! Vous ici! Je vous croyais au zoo/aux eaux! Ma bonne dame! Ça décoiffe! Ça déménageMÇa arrache, ça crache, ça dégage. Les deux, mon capitaine/mon colonel/mon général! On est/sera deux! Au diable l'avarice/les varices!/Ne lésinons pas! A q u i le dis-tu?

C'est celui qui le dit qui l'est! C'est toi qui le dis! Comme je vous le cfc!/Comme ça se prononce /Tel quel /Textuel. J'aime autant vous le dire. Qu'on se le dise\!A bon entendeur, salut! Tu sais ce qu'il te dit le...? Tu vois ce que je veux dire. Vous avez dit...'! Demain, il y a l'école. Elémentaire, mon cher Watson! Je te le donne en mille, Emile! Ce qu'il faut/ne faut pas entendreUOn aura tout entendu! A la tienne, Etienne! Si. . ., alors moi je suis le pape/le président de la république. C'est pas évident. (Est)-ce qu'il faut faire une demande en trois exemplaires pour...? Je t'explique pas!/Je te dis pas./Je te raconte pas.

Répliques figées (Entre la lexicologie et le discours) 83) C'est le facteur. 84) C'est comme si c'était fait! 85) Il faut le faire! 86) Y a pas le feu au lac!/Y a pas le feu aux montres!/...au robinet. 87) Je t'enficheMit t'en fous!/Va te faire foutre! 88) Y a de quoi se flinguer. 89) C'est plus fort que le roquefortl/C'est plus fort que Tarzan dans les mines de gruyère. 90) Ça va fort! 91) Le fonds de l'air estfrais. Respire la couche de dessus! 92) Fais gaffe à tes miches! 93) C'est gagné. 94) C'est la galère! 95) Je vais me gêner. 96) Les glandes! 97) C'est pas la gloire! 98) On n'est pas des gonzesses! 99) (Est-ce que) je te demande si la grand-mère fait du vélo/de la planche à voile/de la moto...? 100) C'est grave, docteur? 101) Ferme ta gueule, ça fait des courants d'air! 102) T'as que la gueule pour fumer! 103) L'heure c'est l'heure! 104) T'as vu Y heure? 105) Encore heureux! 106) Objection, votre Honneur! 107) C'est la honte\/Ça fait la honte! 108) J'ai vu assez d'horreurs pendant la guerre!/J'ai pas peur des horreurs de la guerre! 109) Quand tu as une idée dans le crâne/dans la tête/en tête, tu l'as pas dans le cul/ailleurs! 110) ^'importe quoi! 111) Vinquiète\ÎT'en fais pas!/T'occupe! 112) Y a intérêt! 113) C'est pas la joie! 114) C'est pas joli joli! 115) Où as-tu vu jouer ça?/T'as vu jouer ça où? 116) Joyeux Noël!/Joyeuses Pâques! 117) Il y a une justice*./C'est bien fait pour ta gueule! 118) J'aime mieux le lard. 119) J'ai vu de la lumière. 120) Ne parlez pas de malheur! 121) Ça marche.!Ça colle. 122) Relax, Max!/Cool, Raoul! 123) Tu connais la meilleure? 124) Merci, petit Jésus!/Dieu merci. 125) Merci qui? 126) Pas de messes basses sans curé. 127) Quand on sait pas conduire, on prend le métro. 128) Monsieur! 129) C'est pas la mort (d'un homme)! 130) Mouche ton nez et dis bonjour à la dame! 131) Tu prendras bien le temps de mourir. 132) Je veux, mon neveux! 133) Occupe-toi de ton cul/de tes fesses!/Mêle-toi...!/T'occupe! 134) Marche à l'ombre! 135) On est un con!/On, ça n'existe pas. 136) Minute, papillon! 137) Et n'en parlons plus! 138) C'est pas une partie de plaisir!/C'est pas la joie!/C'est pas le pied!/C'est pas de la tarte! 139) Vous permettez?/Tu permets?

439

440 (140 (141 (142 (143 (144 (145 (146 (147 (148 (149 (150 (151 (152 (153 (154 (155 (156 (157 (158 (159 (160 (161 (162 (163 (164 (165 (166 (167 (168 (169 (170 (171 (172 (173 (174 (175 (176 (177 (178 (179 (180 (181

(182 (183 (184 (185 (186 (187 (188

(189 (190 (191 (192 (193 (194 (195 (196

Liana Pop Accroche-toi au pinceau! Pincez-moi, je rêve! Ça plane! Arrête, tu vas me faire pleurer! Il va pleuvoir! Ça me plie! -Qui c'est? -C'est le plombier! Je l'ai/ne l'ai pas dans ma poche! Point c'est marre! AJn point c'est tout!/Point à la ligne./Un point, une barre!/Un trait, un point! Sois poli si t'es pas joli! C'est le pompon! Il faut que ça marche/vienne ou que ça dise pourquoi Ça nouspousseUÇa ne nous rajeunit pas. Il faut pas pousser grand-mère dans les orties! Ça te prend souvent? On n'arrête pas le progrès! La purée! Putain d'Adèle/de moine! Des queues de (cerises)! Je ne te raconte pas!/Je ne te dis pas!/J't'explique pas. Ça ne me rajeunit pas!/Ça nous pousse! (Non mais) tu t'es pas regardéhm\ Ça (re)pousse pas! Après moi s'il en resie!/Chacun pour soi. Je sais pas ce qui me retient!'/Retenez-moi ou je fais un malheur! Circulez, y a rien à voir. Rien que ça!/Excusez du peu! Laissez-moi rire! Ça roule\!Ça marche! Roulez, jeunesse! Ça va saigner! Y a plus de saisons! C'est pas sa/e!/C'est pas cochon./C'est pas dégueu. Je ne veux pas le savoir. Deuxième service !/Rebelote. Sa ioeurî/Rhabillez le gamin! C'est nouveau, ça vient de sortir! Tiens, donc!/Allons donc!/Ben voyons! Reviens sur terre! Et toc\mx pan!/Et vlan! C'est reparti pour un tour! T'es pas transparent!/Ton père n'est pas vitrier! Et voilà le travail! C'est triste la vie d'artiste! Trop c'est trop! Ça me troue-, tu me troues!/Ça me scie; tu me scies! A la une, à la deux, à la trois! Pas de vagues! Pose tes valises, (t'es trop chargé)! Ça vautUÇa vaut le coup/la peine/le déplacement... Laisse aller, c'est une valse! -Quoi de neuf? -Tout est vieux./Rien que du vieux! C'est vite dit!/Doucement!/Pas si vite! Il faut le voir pour le croire./On aura tout vu. Tu vois ce que je vois? C'est pas vrai! Y a que ça de vrai!

Maria

Freddi

Dialogic Usage of Some English Connectives

1. Introduction 2. Connectives from a semantic and pragmatic perspective 3. A model 4. Inventory of functions 5. Conclusions References

1. Introduction This study explores the dialogic functions of five English connectives, namely indeed, in fact, in point of fact, in actual fact, as a matter offact. I will try to demonstrate that these functions are mainly argumentative functions, since most dialogues can be seen as structured in terms of argumentative units, and that connectives are the ultimate organizers of argumentation. Before going deeply into the matter, some preliminary remarks on the linguistic nature of connectives should be made. I will then briefly refer to what is to be found in some monolingual dictionaries, and move on to examine some authentic examples in order to propose a tentative inventory of the most frequent functions. Connectives do serve many functions, yet here I will focus on the dialogic ones. The data analysed consist of a number of concordances from the Collins Cobuild Direct corpus and examples drawn from two texts, namely A Passage to India by E. M. Forster and Pygmalion by G. B. Shaw.

2. Connectives from a semantic and pragmatic perspective The fundamental argumentative role of connectives ought to be included among the considerations on the complex mixture of semantic and pragmatic features which connectives appear to be. According to Stati's distinctions - dialogic vs. monologic and syntactic vs. pragmatic usage of connectives (cf. Stati 1986) - the dialogic usage is present when, I quote, „connection involves utterances which are distributed between the two participants in the verbal exchange", whereas we have a pragmatic usage when the user signals the speech act (s)he intends to perform. If we consider a sequence of dialogue turns as a sequence of speech acts, we will then have the pragmatic-dialogic usage. Dialogues are argumentative texts par excellence, insofar as argumentation moves in a sequencing pattern are recognisable. The moves introduced

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by connectives can thus be studied. Which is also what Lo Cascio does, though not considering a specifically dialogic usage. To him (cf. Lo Cascio 1991) argumentation is a macro-speech act, for it can be considered as the integration of many simple acts. By indicating the illocutionary force, connectives mark various stages of argumentation (the thesis, the arguments or data, the general rule, the reservations, the source, etc.), and sometimes even a macro-category such as the argumentative text itself. What emerges from these observations is that semantics is not enough to fully explain the usage of connectives. Other scholars, though often differing on terminology, share the above mentioned distinction, semantic vs. pragmatic usage. Consider for example Halliday and Hasan's opposition between internal and external (cf. Halliday/Hasan 1976) and that of van Dijk between semantic and pragmatic

(cf. van Dijk 1977). The idea behind the label is the same: pragmatic

connectives structure the communicative situation, which is in some way internal to the process of linguistic interaction, whether it be intended as a sequence of speech acts (van Dijk), or as stages in the unfolding of communication (Halliday/Hasan). Similarly, Schiffrin suggests that only the integration of structural, semantic, pragmatic, cognitive, and even social factors, accounts for the complexity of words such as discourse markers (cf. Schiffrin 1987). She therefore proposes an integrated model of discourse in which semantic, pragmatic, socio-linguistic and cognitive components systematically interact to create coherence. Discourse markers are elements of discourse that mark some of these components, in general functioning on more levels simultaneously, and thus playing a crucial role in accomplishing coherence. It is interesting to notice that Schiffrin addresses the problem of the pragmatic and semantic status of connectives by reflecting on van Dijk's and Halliday and Hasan's studies. The author observes the symmetry between semantic and external, on the one hand, and between pragmatic and internal connective on the other, and concludes that seeing the latter as the prolongation of the former, as Halliday and Hasan do, implies a reformulation of the relationship between semantics and pragmatics in terms of continuity rather than discontinuity, a reformulation which, however, goes beyond the dichotomy posed at the beginning of my paper. This is possible if we consider discourse markers as indexical expressions, that is, elements which index utterances and their interpretation to context. There is a deictic dimension intrinsic to discourse markers, which is also their raison d'être. Since context includes both the linguistic and non-linguistic environment (i.e. participants, too), they provide contextual

coordinates,

and this being the

reason why they are used, they become contextual coordinates themselves. As Fraser puts it, they are a kind of discourse glue (cf. Fraser 1990). According to Fraser, discourse markers are a class of pragmatic markers (cf. Fraser 1996b), which codify the speaker's communicative intentions, that is the pragmatic information of a message, taken to be distinct from the prepositional content of a sentence. Discourse markers in particular signal how the speaker/writer sees the relation between the basic message and the foregoing discourse to be {sequential discourse and orient the hearer/reader.

relationship),

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3. A model Within this theoretical framework and following the analysis of a number of concordances from the Collins Cobuild Direct corpus I can conclude that the five connectives consist of what I will call a semantic core and a pragmatic contour. More specifically, the semantic core is formed by two components: the first of which, varying from connective to connective, corresponds to what some lexicographers have managed to define (for example OED's attempt to define in fact as „with reference to matters of fact" (see tab. 1)); the second, which is common to all the connectives examined, and therefore fixed, consists in their connectivity, that is to say their relational nature, such that each time a connective occurs we presuppose the presence of a connected member somewhere else in the text. The pragmatic contour includes the usage conditions of connectives, which are not primarily linguistic, but have to do with the relations among users (i.e. the interactional dimension), and with the relations established between the users and the text (i.e. the way the speaker/writer organizes his/her discourse). Among these are also the dialogic-argumentative roles. Therefore, connectives, as metalinguistic operators, become organizers of argumentation, and ultimately rhetorical means. Let us examine this in detail.

4. Inventory of functions The functions that follow are the result of the analysis of 500 concordances of each connective apart from in actual fact and in point offact, which occurred respectively only 39 and 5 times in the Cobuild corpus, at the time I had access to it. These can be compared with the information found in 10 currently available monolingual dictionaries. The dialogic usage is sometimes present (see tab. 1 and tab. 2). As regards in fact, one dialogic usage has been recognised, namely disagreeing as a correspondent of the monologic contrast or self-rectification. It can be observed that a real contrast is rarely the case. More often we find what I have called self-rectification: the speaker/writer eliminates a possible point of view by formulating another. Compare contrast in a monologue: (1)

...and there I learned to my shame that all these painters who my father thought were the high points of high art were, in fact, perfect examples of non-ait. The Pre-Raphaelites went down and down on the auction blocks of the world. So that sometime in...

In fact expresses a contrast (a real one, here) between were the high points of high art and were perfect examples of non-art. It is interesting to note the symmetry of the construction:

Maria Freddi

444 were \ the high points \ of high art in fact were \ perfect examples \ of non-art Contrast and self-rectification converge in dialogic disagreeing in: (2)

...would soon be off for a nap. People used to ask me „What was Bing like playing golf, I'll bet he was uproarious, right?" In fact, he was relaxed to the point of boredom, good-natured boredom. It's true he always looked you in the eye, but he did it with...

where in fact, could be substituted with but and the meaning would not change: the „in reality", „in truth" nuance, however, is there, too. The disagreeing is easily recognisable thanks to the lexical value of the two key-words in the right and left co-text, which are textually antonymous: he was uproarious

vs. he was relaxed to the point of boredom. A generic interlocutor asks the

partner a question (what was Bing like playing golf?), containing the thesis (I'll bet he was uproarious)

which is followed by an assertion

completed by a request for confirmation

(right?). In fact introduces an answer which is in contrast with the partner's thesis, in other words, it rejects the partner's argumentation. Analogously, the following example from A Passage To India shows the connective introducing an objection: (3)

„Ronny, Ronny! You're never going to pass it on to Major Callendar?" „Yes, rather. I must, in fact\" (cf. Forster 1989, 54)

The same procedure was adopted to classify the functions of as a matter of fact. See: (4)

Silence dropped again like the heavy safety curtain in a theatre. Castle began with a confidence, matter of fact I'm in a bit of trouble."

where the connective introduces a new topic, a new thesis meaning „a propos"

a

or „talking

about", to which the usual nuance „now I will say something true" adds complexity. Swan is of some use when he talks of the „introduction of a surprising, unexpected piece of information" (cf. Swan 1980). Numerous citations exemplify what Swan describes as „expectations that were not fulfilled", and which I shall call disappointment

of the interlocutor's

expectations.

This function seems

related to disagreeing: as a matter of fact reinforces the preceding negation. See for example: (5)

„You must have had plenty of practice, surely." - „Not much, as a matter of fact. I haven't been to many dances."

(6)

„1 suppose you want to rush home." - „No. As a matter of fact, I wanted to buy a paper."

(7)

„She didn't leave a note or anything like that." - „Yes", said Wilt, „as a matter of fact she did."

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In contrast, the other typically dialogic function „confirmation of the partner's expectations or suppositions" where as a matter of fact corresponds to „to tell the truth, yes" is illustrated by: (8)

„In that case," said Wilt, picking up a blackened sausage, „you must have had a deprived childhood." ,/l s a matter of fact I did," Sally said and plucked the sausage from his fingers.

To sum up, as a matter of fact can have four dialogic functions: 1. introduction of an unexpected piece of information/new thesis', 2. disappointment of the interlocutor's expectations, 3. disagreeing-, 4. confirmation of the interlocutor's expectations', It can be noticed that 2. and 3. overlap. It is often very difficult to state whether falling short of the partner's expectations is also a way of disagreeing with him/her or not. Significantly, the analysis of the monologic citations has revealed only the self-rectification sense and no real contrast as was the case with in fact. Moreover, 2. and 4. are exact opposites, which means that when using the connective, the speaker can do two opposing things. This is partly the reason for the difficulty the non-native speaker has in employing a connective. Also, 4. has the monologic equivalent in confirmation, and 1. vaguely recalls the monologic specification mentioned by some dictionaries. It is clear that in order to identify the argumentative units in a dialogic text, one can rely on the argumentation moves identified in monologues. As for indeed, see. 1 emphatic confirmation as in (9)

„Do you have any facts to back up all this?" - Jndeed I do, madam."

or in the following examples from Pygmalion (10)

Higgins: Oh! Men of the world, are we? You'd better go, Mrs Pearce. Mrs Pearce: I think so, indeed, sir. (cf. Shaw 1994, 27)

and A Passage to India (11) „Do you care to meet one or two?" - „Very, veiy much indeed', it's what I long for ..." (cf. Forster 1989, 65)

where the question is followed by an elliptical answer lacking subject and verb. Indeed occurs in a turn expressing emphatic agreement, being the acceptance of an invitation. See also: (12)

„Visitors like you are too rare." - „They are indeed," said Professor Godbole. (cf. Forster 1989, 90)

Maria Freddi

446 Or: (13)

„Can you give us a lift?" - „Yes, indeed!" (cf. Forster 1989, 105)

The argumentative justification

is the monologic correspondent.

2. ironic confirmation. for example, irony adds to the usual confirmation function in the exchange between Fielding and Aziz, (14)

„You can talk to Miss Quested about the Peacock Throne if you like - she's artistic, they say." - „Is she a Post-Impressionist?" - „Post-Impressionism, indeed!" (cf. Forster 1989, 84)

The interlocutor's thesis is approved, confirmed and emphasised by the sceptical and ironic Fielding, incapable of telling what being post-impressionist means and dismissing such a simplistic label as „obscure". (15)

Liza: I'm going away. He's off his chump, he is. I don't want no balmies teaching me. Higgins...: Oh, indeed\ I'm mad, am I? Very well, Mrs Pearce: you needn't order the new clothes for her. Throw her out. (cf Shaw 1994, 17)

Some dictionaries do mention an „ironic answer", though not in terms of argumentative confirmation (see tab. 2).

3. request for confirmation: the connective is used interrogatively, „meaning really?" in: (16)

„But I can't marry her if I wanted to, for she has just become engaged to the City Magistrate." - „Has she indeed! I am so glad." (cf. Forster 1989, 131)

4. agreement {echo), as exemplified by: (17)

„Why make such a charge if you were going to withdraw it?' „Why indeed'" (cf. Forster 1989, 239)

COBUILD and some other dictionaries define it „echo", a way of agreeing by echoing the interlocutor's opinion. Sometimes the agreement is reduced to a kind of receipt token, indeed acts as a reaction sign, the weakest possible form of positive reaction to a thesis. Also, especially in spoken English, it very often constitutes a complete turn of the turn-taking system, so that we speak of indeed-turns expressing emphasis, which are usually the preferred-reply of an adjacency pair.

Dialogic Usage of Some English Connectives

447

In point of fact occurs only five times in the corpus, of which four are spoken English (these figures tell us something about its very low frequency as regards written language in particular). Only one dialogic function was identified, namely disagreeing. See: (18)

„Had you erm as a child er visited China at all?" - „No. No." - „Before you returned?" - „No. In in point of fact erm we did very little travel indeed. I certainly remember.

where one could substitute as a matter of fact for in point of fact. Similarly, two dialogic functions of in actual fact have been retrieved, namely 1. disagreeing and 2. confirmation. See the following concordances which illustrate 1. and 2. respectively: (19)

„Right I mean mumbling mumb and groaning?" - „Well I haven't heard that in actual fact."

(20)

„And sorry you were a sort of visitor there almost now." - „Well in actual fact we well we couldn't get uniforms anyway. We were technically..."

where the utterance to which the connective is attached confirms the interlocutor's expectations.

5. Conclusions

Having shown the characteristics particular to this class of words (i.e. their semantic and pragmatic features), it becomes obvious that an interdisciplinary approach is necessary: linguistic semantics is no longer enough to fully appreciate the complexity of connectives and consequently to provide a thorough and exhaustive description of their usage. There is the need to appeal to the domains of disciplines such as pragmatics, philosophy of language, logic and sociolinguistics. Although we are not directly concerned here with problems of comparative analysis, it is worth noticing that the argumentative nature of connectives is the reason why non-native speakers have difficulty in using them appropriately. Indeed, the user is not only asked to learn a new word, but to manipulate English argumentative structures as well. In other words, the proper use of connectives is a question of the entire rhetoric of a foreign language.

CASSEL

WEBSTER

OALD

ShOED

OED

LONGMAN

Dictionaries

in truth, really

in fact

actually, in fact

as a matter offact

>>

)>

>5

in reality, actually

in point offact

in truth, actually, really

in fact

in point of fact

in fact

in reality, to tell the truth

in point offact, really

in point offact

as a matter offact in reality, actually

in reality in fact

in fact

in point offact

in point offact, really

as a matter offact

in fact

in point offact

in reality

>>

really, actually >> > >

Synonyms

as a matter offact

in fact

in point offact

in actualfact

as a matter offact

in fact

Connectives

- emphasis

- amplification

- epexegetical

- disagreeing

- adds force to pre-text

- extra information

Usage

independently of theory or argument

with regard to fact

with regard to matters of fact

Definition

448 Maria Freddi

COBUILD

BBC

CIDE

PENGUIN

- extra information - modification

as a matter offact

in actualfact

in point offact

- modifies

- explains

- adds details

- contrasts

- contradicts

in actualfact

as a matter offact

- adds details - modifies

in fact

in point offact

- actual truth

in fact

in point offact

in actualfact

- contrast

as a matter offact

- adds force to pre-text

- extra information - emphasis

»

»

- adds force to pre-text

in fact

in fact

in point offact

as a matter offact

51

in actual fact »

actually, really 51

in fact

the truth is

Dialogic Usage of Some English Connectives

449

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