InterGrammar: Toward an Integrative Model of Verbal, Prosodic and Kinesic Choices in Speech 9783110872910, 9783110112443

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InterGrammar

Studies in Anthropological Linguistics 2

Editors Florian Coulmas Jacob L. Mey

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York · Amsterdam

InterGrammar Toward an Integrative Model of Verbal, Prosodic and Kinesic Choices in Speech

by Horst Arndt Richard Wayne Janney

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York · Amsterdam

1987

Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Arndt, Horst, 1 9 2 9 InterGrammar : toward an integrative model of verbal, prosodic, and kinesic choices in speech. (Studies in anthropological linguistics ; 2) Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Oral communication. 2. Prosodic analysis (Linguistics) 3. Nonverbal communication (Psychology) I. Janney, Richard Wayne, 1 9 4 5 . II. Title. III. Series. P95.A76 1987 001.54'2 87-22121 ISBN 0-89925-331-8 (alk. paper)

CIP-Kurztitelaufnahme der Deutschen Bibliothek Arndt, Horst: InterGrammar : toward an integrative model of verbal, prosod. and kines., choices in speech / Horst Arndt ; Richard Wayne Janney. — Berlin; New York ; Amsterdam : Mouton de Gruyter, 1987. (Studies in anthropological linguistics ; 2) ISBN 3-11-011244-2 NE: Janney, Richard Wayne: ; GT

Printed on acid free paper. © Copyright 1987 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin. All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form — by photoprint, microfilm, or any other means — nor transmitted nor translated into a machine language without written permission from Mouton de Gruyter, a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin. Typesetting: Arthur Collignon — Printing: Ratzlow-Druck, Berlin. — Binding: Dieter Mikolai, Berlin. — Printed in Germany.

Table of Contents

List of

figures

Introduction

XIII 1

1. The Context of InterGrammar 1.1 Linguistic models, model objects, and designated realities 1.1.1 Designated realities 1.1.2 Model objects 1.1.3 Linguistic models 1.1.4 Implications 1.2 Autonomous and nonautonomous linguistic exemplars 1.2.1 Autonomous exemplars 1.2.1.1 Language as a relational system 1.2.1.2 Language as a propositional system . . . . 1.2.2 Nonautonomous exemplars 1.2.2.1 Intraorganism exemplars 1.2.2.1.1 Language as a neurological phenomenon 1.2.2.1.2 Language as a psychological phenomenon 1.2.2.2 Interorganism exemplars 1.2.2.2.1 Language as a sociocultural phenomenon 1.2.2.2.2 Language as an interpersonal phenomenon 1.3 Linguistic ideologies 1.3.1 Formalist versus instrumentalist ideologies 1.3.2 The limitations of ideological argumentation. . . . 1.4 Introspection and observation in linguistic theory . . . . 1.4.1 Intuition and observation 1.4.2 Intersubjectivity and conventionality

13 13 13 16 17 19 20 23 23 24 24 24

2. Choice and Constraint in Linguistic Theory 2.1 Abductive reasoning 2.2 An abductive rationale for communicative choices and constraints

49 51

24 25 26 26 26 28 29 33 39 41 44

55

VI

Table of contents

2.3 Global assumptions 2.4 Situational assumptions 2.5 The perception of communicative acts 2.5.1 Motivational factors in perception 2.5.2 Expectations and perception 2.6 Attitudinal dimensions of communicative decisions . . . 2.6.1 The basic dimensions of attitudinal states 2.6.2 Modeling attitudes and their objects 2.7 Intentional dimensions of communicative decisions . . . 2.7.1 Basic dimensions of communicative intentions . . . 2.7.2 A query-response typology of communicative intentions

58 60 63 64 66 69 71 74 80 83

3. Communicative Choices 3.1 Multimodal dimensions of communicative choice . . . . 3.2 Verbal, prosodic, and kinesic choices 3.2.1 Verbal choices 3.2.2 Prosodic choices 3.2.2.1 Pitch nucleus placement 3.2.2.2 Pitch nucleus prominence 3.2.2.3 Pitch direction 3.2.3 Kinesic choices 3.2.3.1 Body posture 3.2.3.2 Facial expression 3.2.3.3 Eye contact 3.2.4 Intersystemic choices 3.3 Reflective and projective aspects of communicative choices 3.4 The modulation and modification of communicative choices 3.4.1 Cognitive-emotional dimensions of communicative choice 3.4.2 Interpersonal dimensions of communicative choice 3.4.3 Group role dimensions of communicative choice 3.4.4 Implications

91 92 96 99 101 101 102 103 103 104 105 106 107

4. Interpretive Choices 4.1 Interpretive consensus and interpretive variation 4.2 Meaning, understanding, and interpretation 4.3 Interpretive processes 4.3.1 Types of interpretation

123 124 129 133 134

86

109 113 114 117 120 121

Table of contents

VII

4.3.2 Ego-involvement and ego-threat as factors in interpretation 135 4.3.3 Inferred intentionality as a factor in interpretation 137 4.3.4 Implications 140 5. The Interpretation of Verbal Choices 5.1 Style 5.1.1 Style viewed formally 5.1.2 Style viewed functionally 5.1.2.1 Frozen style 5.1.2.2 Formal style 5.1.2.3 Consultative style 5.1.2.4 Casual style 5.1.2.5 Intimate style 5.1.3 Style viewed psychologically 5.1.3.1 Interstylistic choices 5.1.3.2 Intrastylistic choices 5.1.4 Implications 5.2 The perception of verbal formality and directness . . . . 5.2.1 Experiment I: Native speaker perceptions of formality 5.2.1.1 Issue 5.2.1.2 Method 5.2.1.3 Results 5.2.1.3.1 Predicted versus unpredicted responses 5.2.1.3.2 Decisive versus indecisive responses 5.2.1.3.3 Distribution of unpredicted responses 5.2.1.4 Discussion 5.2.2 Experiment II: Non-native speaker perceptions of English formality 5.2.2.1 Issue 5.2.2.2 Method 5.2.2.3 Results: German test subjects 5.2.2.4 Results: Taiwanese test subjects 5.2.2.5 Discussion 5.2.3 Non-native speaker perceptions of verbal directness

145 146 147 149 154 154 156 157 157 158 160 162 164 167 167 167 168 169 169 170 171 172 173 173 174 174 175 175 176

VIII

Table of contents

5.2.3.1 Issue 5.2.3.2 Method 5.2.3.3 Results: German test subjects 5.2.3.4 Results: Taiwanese test subjects 5.2.3.5 Discussion 5.3 The interpretation of variations in verbal formality . . . 5.3.1 Verbal formality and group role relationships . . . 5.3.2 Verbal formality and interpersonal involvement . . 5.3.3 Informality and formality as approach-avoidance phenomena 5.3.4 A schema of interpretive alternatives for informal, neutral, and formal speech styles 5.4 The interpretation of variations in verbal directness . . . 5.4.1 Verbal intensity 5.4.1.1 Value-ladenness 5.4.1.2 Inclusiveness 5.4.1.3 Explicitness 5.4.1.4 Modality 5.4.1.5 Aspect and mood 5.4.1.6 Summary: The characteristics of verbal intensity 5.4.2 Verbal immediacy 5.4.2.1 The immediacy and proximity of concepts in utterances 5.4.2.2 Summary: The characteristics of verbal immediacy 5.4.3 Verbal diversity 5.4.4 A schema of interpretive alternatives for variations in verbal directness

176 176 177 178 178 179 180 182 187 190 195 197 197 199 200 202 205 208 209 210 215 216 217

6. The Interpretation of Prosodic Choices 225 6.1 Prosody 226 6.1.1 Prosody as gesture 228 6.1.2 Prosodic features and functions 234 6.1.3 Prosodic interpretations 235 6.2 The interpretation of pitch nucleus placement 240 6.2.1 Stress and accent 241 6.2.2 Syntactic versus emotive views of pitch nucleus placement 243 6.2.3 Pitch nucleus placement and salience 245

Table of contents

6.3 The interpretation of pitch nucleus prominence 6.3.1 Pitch nucleus prominence as an intensity cue. . . . 6.3.2 A schema of interpretive alternatives for variations in pitch nucleus prominence 6.4 The interpretation of pitch nucleus direction 6.4.1 Attitudinal interpretations of pitch nucleus direction 6.4.1.1 The fall 6.4.1.2 The rise 6.4.1.3 The fall-rise 6.4.1.4 Summary 6.4.2 The relevance of standard attitudinal views of pitch direction to the InterGrammar schema 6.4.3 Attitudinally marked and unmarked intonational choices 6.4.4 Schemata of interpretive alternatives for variations in pitch direction 6.4.4.1 The unexpected fall in yes/no questions and simple requests 6.4.4.2 The unexpected rise in simple statements and wh-questions 6.4.4.3 The unexpected rise in commands and directives 6.4.4.4 The fall-rise 7. The Interpretation of Kinesic Choices 7.1 Kinesics 7.1.1 Emotive kinesic cues 7.1.2 Kinesic interpretations 7.2 Smiling-frowning expression 7.2.1 Smiles and frowns as affective and interpersonal cues 7.2.2 A schema of interpretive alternatives for smiles and frowns 7.3 Gaze and gaze aversion 7.3.1 Gaze and gaze aversion as affective and interpersonal cues 7.3.2 A schema of interpretive alternatives for full and averted gaze 7.4 Body tension-relaxation

IX

252 253 255 258 260 262 265 267 269 269 272 275 277 278 279 281 285 285 288 290 292 293 296 299 300 302 305

X

Table of contents

7.4.1 Body tension and relaxation as affective and interpersonal cues 7.4.2 A schema of interpretive alternatives for body tension-relaxation 7.5 Kinesic cue combinations 7.5.1 Smiling in relation to other cues 7.5.2 Frowning in relation to other cues 7.5.3 Full gaze in relation to other cues 7.5.4 Averted gaze in relation to other cues 7.5.5 Body tension in relation to other cues 7.5.6 Body relaxation in relation to other cues 7.5.7 'Normal' kinesic behavior in relation to other cues 8. Trimodal Patterning in Speech 8.1 Emotive dimensions of speech 8.1.1 Approaching emotive communication systematically 8.1.2 The confidence dimension 8.1.2.1 Primary confidence cues 8.1.2.1.1 Verbal directness 8.1.2.1.2 Pitch direction 8.1.2.2 Secondary confidence cues 8.1.2.2.1 Gaze and gaze aversion 8.1.2.2.2 Verbal formality and informality 8.1.2.2.3 Variations in pitch prominence . 8.1.2.2.4 Frowning and smiling 8.1.2.2.5 Body relaxation 8.1.2.2.6 Speaker- and partner-oriented utterances 8.1.3 The positive-negative dimension 8.1.3.1 Primary positive-negative cues 8.1.3.1.1 Value-laden language 8.1.3.1.2 Facial expression 8.1.3.2 Secondary positive-negative cues 8.1.3.2.1 Tone of voice 8.1.3.2.2 Inclusiveness and exclusiveness of reference 8.1.3.2.3 Explicitness and inexplicitness of reference 8.1.3.2.4 Body tension

305 309 312 316 317 318 319 320 320 321 325 329 330 337 338 338 339 341 341 342 343 343 344 344 345 345 345 347 348 348 349 349 350

Table of contents

XI

8.1.3.2.5 Verbal indirectness, falling-rising intonation, and gaze aversion with positive messages 351 8.1.4 The involvement dimension 8.1.4.1 Primary emotional involvement cues . . . . 8.1.4.1.1 Verbal intensity 8.1.4.1.2 Pitch prominence 8.1.4.1.3 Body posture 8.1.4.2 Secondary emotional involvement cues . . 8.1.4.2.1 Sudden increases in informality 8.1.4.2.2 Sudden increases in directness . . 8.1.4.2.3 Falling pitch in utterances normally requiring a rise 8.1.4.2.4 Rising pitch in utterances normally requiring a fall 8.1.4.2.5 Gaze and gaze aversion 8.1.4.3 Primary interpersonal involvement cues . . 8.1.4.3.1 Verbal formality 8.1.4.3.2 Gaze 8.1.4.4 Secondary interpersonal involvement cues 8.1.4.4.1 Impersonal, partner-oriented and inclusive utterances 8.1.4.4.2 Smiling 8.1.5 A trimodal framework of emotive cues 8.2 Trimodal interaction 8.2.1 Trimodal micro-contexts 8.2.1.1 Redundant patterning 8.2.1.2 Contrastive patterning 8.2.1.3 Incongruent patterning 8.2.2 Effective interpersonal communication 8.2.2.1 Politeness 8.2.2.2 Face-needs 8.2.2.3 Supportiveness 8.2.3 Supportive and nonsupportive speech strategies . . 8.2.3.1 Modulating interpersonal assertiveness . . 8.2.3.1.1 Supportive self-assertive strategies 8.2.3.1.2 Nonsupportive self-assertive strategies

351 352 352 352 353 353 354 355 356 356 356 357 358 358 359 359 360 360 363 364 367 369 372 373 374 378 378 380 380 381 382

XII

Table of contents

8.2.3.1.3 Supportive nonassertive strategies 8.2.3.1.4 Nonsupportive nonassertive strategies 8.2.3.1.5 Self-assertiveness and face-work 8.2.3.2 Modulating positive-negative affect 8.2.3.2.1 Supportive positive strategies. . . 8.2.3.2.2 Nonsupportive positive strategies 8.2.3.2.3 Supportive negative strategies . . 8.2.3.2.4 Nonsupportive negative strategies 8.2.3.2.5 Positive-negative affect and facework 8.2.3.3 Modulating interpersonal involvement . . . 8.2.3.3.1 Supportive involvement strategies 8.2.3.3.2 Nonsupportive involvement strategies 8.2.3.3.3 Supportive uninvolvement strategies 8.2.3.3.4 Nonsupportive uninvolvement strategies 8.2.3.3.5 Interpersonal involvement and face-work

382 383 383 384 385 385 386 387 387 388 389 389 390 391 391

Conclusion

393

Bibliography

401

Author Index

445

Subject Index

451

List of Figures

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

Relationships between linguistic models, model objects, and designated realities Designated realities in linguistic models Linguistic exemplars Types of reasoning Abductive reasoning An abductive rationale for communicative and interpretive choices and constraints InterGrammar dimensions of speaker motivation, mapped onto a hierarchical schema Dimensions of affect A three-dimensional model of attitudinal states Attitudinal influences on communicative decisions Attitudinal influences on communicative decisions distinguished by object, polarity, and relative intensity Utterances and interpretable intentions Basic dimensions of communicative intentions Inter- and intrastylistic verbal choices Pitch nucleus placement and semantic focus Pitch nucleus prominence and emotional involvement . . . Pitch direction and assertiveness, uncertainty, and ambivalence Body posture and emotional involvement Facial expression and positive-negative affect Eye contact and attentiveness An integrative framework of verbal, prosodic, and kinesic choices Reflective and projective aspects of communicative choice Interpretive consensus and variation in an everyday conversation The relevance of the concepts of meaning, understanding, and interpretation in accounts of human communication Types of interpretation Ego-involvement and ego-threat as factors in interpretation

14 16 22 52 53 57 65 72 75 77 79 83 86 100 102 102 103 105 106 106 108 111 124 130 134 136

XIV

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

List of figures

Inferred intentionality as a factor in interpretation Projected speaker-listener affective and behavioral interdependence and verbal formality/informality Predicted and unpredicted responses to informal, neutral, and formal utterances Predicted and unpredicted responses with neutral and formal type utterances averaged together Decisive and indecisive responses to informal, neutral, and formal utterances Distribution of predicted and unpredicted responses . . . . Percentage distribution of unpredicted responses Predicted and unpredicted responses of German test subjects to variations in English formality Predicted and unpredicted responses of Taiwanese test subjects to variations in English formality Predicted and unpredicted responses of German test subjects to variations in English directness Predicted and unpredicted responses of Taiwanese test subjects to variations in English directness Primary and secondary interpretive alternatives for unexpected variations in verbal formality Directness and indirectness in the three speech styles represented in the InterGrammar Positively-laden concepts Negatively-laden concepts Modal expressions, frames of reference, and directness. . . Aspect and involvement in the present and future tenses . Mood and self-assertiveness Immediacy and proximity in the interpretation of cognitive meaning Immediacy and proximity as attitudinal cues Primary and secondary interpretive alternatives for unexpected variations in verbal directness Primary and secondary interpretive alternatives for unexpected variations in pitch nucleus prominence Attitudinally marked and unmarked pitch contours Interpretive possibilities for explaining attitudinally marked pitch contours Interpretive possibilities for unexpected falling pitch . . . .

141 162 170 170 170 171 171 174 175 178 178 193 195 197 198 204 206 207 211 212 223 257 274 276 277

List of figures

52 Primary and secondary interpretive alternatives for unexpected falling pitch contours 53 Interpretive possibilities for unexpected rising pitch contours in simple statements and wh-questions 54 Primary and secondary interpretive alternatives for unexpected rising pitch contours in simple statements and whquestions 55 Interpretive possibilities for unexpected rising pitch contours in commands and directives 56 Primary and secondary interpretive alternatives for unexpected rising pitch contours in commands and directives . 57 Interpretive possibilities for falling-rising pitch contours . . 58 Primary and secondary interpretive alternatives for fallingrising pitch contours 59 Interpretive alternatives for smiles 60 Interpretive alternatives for frowns 61 Primary and secondary interpretive alternatives for smiling, normal, and frowning facial expressions 62 Interpretive alternatives for high eye contact 63 Interpretive alternatives for low eye contact 64 Primary and secondary interpretive alternatives for full, normal, and averted gazes 65 Some interpersonal interpretations of relaxed, normal, and tense body postures along positive-negative and dominancesubmission lines 66 Interpretive alternatives for body tension 67 Interpretive alternatives for body relaxation 68 Primary and secondary interpretive alternatives for tense, normal, and relaxed body postures 69 Development and volitional control of the InterGrammar kinesic cues 70 Experimentally elicited interpretations of high eye contact -I- tense-relaxed body posture 71 Experimentally elicited interpretations of low eye contact + tense-relaxed body posture 72 A preliminary overview of verbal, prosodic and kinesic cues and their emotive functions 73 A trimodal framework of emotive cues 74 Speakers' assertive strategies and partners' face-needs . . .

XV

278 279

280 280 281 282 283 297 297 299 303 303 304

307 310 310 311 314 315 316 336 362 384

XVI

75 76

List of figures

Speakers' positive-negative strategies and partners' faceneeds 388 Speakers' interpersonal involvement strategies and partners' face-needs 392

Introduction When [my elders] named some object ... I saw this and I grasped that the thing was called by the sound they uttered when they meant to point it out. Their intention was shown by their bodily movements, as it were the natural language of all peoples: the expression of the face, the play of the eyes, the movement of other parts of the body, and the tone of voice which expresses our state of mind in seeking, having, rejecting, or avoiding something. St. Augustine (397 A.D.)

Language is behavior, i. e., a phase of human activity which must not be treated in essence as structurally divorced from the structure of nonverbal human activity. The activity of man constitutes a structural whole, in such a way that it cannot be subdivided into neat 'parts' or 'levels' or 'compartments' with language in a behavioral compartment insulated in character, content, and organization from other behavior. Verbal and nonverbal activity is a unified whole, and theory and methodology should be organized or created to treat it as such. Pike (1954)

This book explores some of the possibilities of adopting an integrative multimodal approach to studying American English speech. The past few decades in linguistics have been characterized by a growing disparity between the assumptions of official autonomous linguistic theory and the findings of investigators of spoken language. The gap between introspective and observational standpoints in linguistic research is becoming steadily greater. Today, at a time when behaviorally and pragmatically oriented linguists are attempting to develop systematic models of actual speech and conversation (cf. Coulmas 1981a; Mey 1981), autonomous linguists are producing increasingly hypothetical introspective models of cognitive processes said to stand behind or to underlie human language. This development is perhaps clearest in the work of the generative grammarians, whose views on matters of linguistic fact have domi-

2

Introduction

nated the discussion in autonomous linguistics since the mid-sixties. In the early sixties they rejected observed language use as irrelevant to the study of language (cf. Chomsky 1965: 4); in the seventies they went on to reject language as irrelevant to the study of generative grammar (cf. Chomsky 1981: 5): ... we shift our focus from the language to the grammar represented in the mind/ brain. The language now becomes an epiphenomenon ... The grammar in a person's mind/brain is real; it is one of the real things in the world. The language (whatever that may be) is not.

In the eighties they have largely dissociated themselves from traditional linguistics and are moving toward defining generative grammar as an independent discipline in its own right (cf. Chomsky 1986: 4-5): Generative grammar is sometimes referred to as a theory, advocated by this or that person. In fact, it is not a theory any more than chemistry is a theory. Generative grammar is a topic, which one may or may not choose to study. Of course one can adopt a point of view from which chemistry disappears as a discipline ... Similarly, one may argue that the topic of generative grammar does not exist, although it is hard to see how to make this position even minimally plausible. Within the study of generative grammar there have been many changes and differences of opinion, often reversion to ideas that had been abandoned and were later reconstructed in a different light. Evidently, this is a healthy phenomenon indicating that the discipline is alive, although it is sometimes, oddly, regarded as a serious deficiency, a sign that something is wrong with the basic approach.

Given this state of affairs, it is understandable that many speech oriented linguists no longer find the theoretical standpoint of generative grammar relevant to their work, and have begun to look beyond autonomous linguistics for useful concepts. Linguists who shift their focus from language to speech enter a realm which traditional linguistic training scarcely prepares them to deal with adequately: the realm of human behavior. Although explaining human behavior has long been a central concern in sociology and psychology, in linguistics it has remained of peripheral interest until relatively recently. Thus while sociologists and psychologists have developed useful models of human behavior, linguists have sometimes had difficulty explaining the human relevance of their findings about idealized language systems. Some, like Chomsky, have sought to define this weakness as a virtue. Others, like Pike, Osgood, Halliday, and Yngve, have attempted to bridge the gap between language systems and language behavior in order to make

Introduction

3

linguistics more humanly accountable. The attempt to do this, however, necessarily threatens the foundations of traditional autonomous linguistic theory, because the lack of an adequate behavioral approach in linguistics forces investigators to turn toward sociology and psychology for concepts, methods and models. This leads to a broadening of their point of view and ultimately to a redefinition of the subject of study: linguistics ceases to focus on language in isolation and becomes a nonautonomous discipline. This book offers one possible approach to studying speech from a nonautonomous perspective. Certain aspects of the approach will be familiar to linguists acquainted with the British functional tradition (cf. Halliday 1985), or to those who have followed American and British sociopsychological research on language use during the past few decades (cf. Wiener & Mehrabian 1968; Giles & Powesland 1975; Giles & St. Clair 1985). Other aspects of the approach will be unfamiliar and will no doubt prompt some colleagues to raise the old Chomskyan objection that what we are advocating is not serious linguistics. The reply in advance is that we are not interested in describing speech as an autonomous verbal communication system, but in beginning to account systematically for how people communicate by speaking. This, we assume, is a legitimate linguistic goal with useful applications in the field of language teaching and with important implications for research on face-to-face conversation (copresent interaction) and intercultural communication. The InterGrammar approaches speech from two basic perspectives. The first is broadly behavioral: speaking is viewed as a unified human activity involving the entire body, not just those parts of it used to produce 'language behavior' in the usual sense. The second perspective is broadly pragmatic: speaking is viewed as goal-directed human action involving speakers and partners in dynamic communicative contexts, not just speakers in isolation. On the basis of research on verbal and nonverbal communication, we construct a framework of verbal, prosodic and kinesic activities that are important in everyday English conversation. On the basis of sociopsychological research on the face-to-face performance and interpretation of these activities, we extend the basic framework to suggest how English speakers vary verbal and nonverbal styles and strategies in order to achieve different goals with different partners in different situations. The result is an essentially hermeneutic model of multimodal communicative and

4

Introduction

interpretive choices based on available empirical studies of face-toface English speech. From a purely physiological point of view, as Sapir pointed out early in the century, there are no organs for communicating, only organs and physical mechanisms that are incidentally useful in performing communicative acts. Physiologically, speech is not a primary function but an overlaid function, or to be more precise, a group of overlaid functions involving the entire human organism (cf. Sapir 1921: 9). Research has failed thus far to determine to what extent language is actually perceived as an independent feature of the noises and movements produced during speech. Contrary to popular belief, neurologists have little evidence that specifically linguistic processes are isolated in the brain from nonlinguistic processes, or that they are guided by a human 'language organ' evolved especially for this purpose (cf. Buck 1984: 5). After years of failing to confirm the psychological reality of notions such as linguistic competence, transformations, deep structure and so on, psychologists and linguists are no longer certain it is possible to draw psychological conclusions on the basis of purely linguistic premises. Research shows that many nonverbal speech activities are learned like verbal expressions and are used in speech in patterned, language-like ways. Thus, although linguists conveniently assume there are clear boundaries between verbal and nonverbal behavior, and habitually distinguish sharply between linguistic and nonlinguistic speech processes, it seems that such assumptions (which originate in the mind-body dichotomy) are more arbitrary than our disembodied linguistic theories lead us to believe. Physiologically, all aspects of speech are interconnected: verbal and nonverbal behavior forms a unified whole. The InterGrammar begins by assuming that verbal, vocal, and kinesic behavior is systematically related in speech. Speech has evolved to satisfy human needs, and the organization of speech behavior is functional with respect to these needs; it is not arbitrary (cf. Halliday 1985: xii). The production of words, stresses, intonations, glances, facial expressions and so on during speech are not discrete activities but aspects of an ongoing stream of behavior. We can separate this stream into verbal, prosodic and kinesic categories if we wish, and study these as autonomous systems with unique semiotic characteristics, types of content and organizational forms. But this introspective, analytical, largely after-the-fact cognitive operation sheds little light on how people actually produce and

Introduction

5

perceive speech, or how they use speech systems to communicate face-to-face. In actual practice it seems that people pay more attention to intersystemic patterns than to intrasystemic ones; they use and interpret verbal, prosodic and kinesic signals in relation to one another, not in isolation (cf. Koch 1986). One of the goals of the InterGrammar is to begin to account systematically for how they do this. An important first step toward studying speech as multimodal communication is to give up viewing language, prosody, and kinesics as isolated systems and begin viewing them as functional co-systems, or as interfacing sub-systems within a larger overriding human face-to-face communication system (cf. Poyatos 1983; Arndt, Janney & Pesch 1984). This requires a radical shift of perspective. It is necessary to adopt a lower level of idealization, stop focusing on logical relational structures within systems, and start looking for general patterns of organization and coordination between systems. The individual systems used in speaking are assumed to exist in advance as potential frameworks of action. Descriptions of these by linguists, phonologists, semiologists, and others define potential communicative behavior and enable us to begin comparing behavior across systems. With a relatively simple framework of verbal, prosodic, and kinesic cues it becomes possible to discover patterns of cross-modal variation in speech. Sociopsychological investigations of verbal and nonverbal face-to-face communication provide interesting hypotheses about why these patterns occur and how they operate as interpersonal signals. The domain of relevance for the InterGrammar is emotive communication: the communication of relatively transitory feelings, attitudes and other affective states. Every instance of referential communication in speech is embedded in a nonreferential emotive context (cf. James 1890: 222; Russell 1912: 73). Research shows that emotive communication involves complexly interrelated verbal, vocal, and kinesic activities, and that it is difficult to account for emotive interpretations of actual utterances without moving beyond language (cf. Buck 1984: 3ff.). The interpretation of utterances in conversation depends to a large extent on nonverbal displays, mainly on vocal modifications and kinesic signals. Information about people's momentary feelings is essential to the contextualization of utterances and plays an important role in their interpretation. People modulate and orchestrate this information cross-modally as the situation requires, speaking more directly or indirectly, more formally or infor-

6

Introduction

mally, more emphatically or less, shifting intonations, smiling, frowning, gazing at their partners, glancing away. All these activities are communicative. Three emotive dimensions of speech have been given considerable attention by clinical and social psychologists: confidence, positivenegative affect, and emotional intensity. The emotive implications of redundant and contrasting verbal, vocal, and kinesic patterns have been studied extensively by psychological investigators of nonverbal communication. It appears that emotive communication can be approached systematically as a multimodal phenomenon, and that interpretive frameworks for emotive cues in the three modes can be formulated. The InterGrammar presents a systematic and theoretically and experimentally justifiable account of how emotive cues operate in speech. The label InterGrammar is intended to suggest two things about the framework introduced in this book: first, that its basic approach is integrative — i. e., interdisciplinary (the research base), intermodal (the verbal, vocal and kinesic phenomena dealt with) and interactional (the domain of practical application); second, that the framework is a systematically ordered account of its subject (selected patterns of verbal and nonverbal choice in face-to-face English speech). The InterGrammar is thus not a traditional 'sentence grammar', in the sense of a finite system of rules representing the logical properties of the infinite number of sentences of the language (cf. Chomsky 1981: 5). It is also not a 'variety grammar', in the sense sometimes used by modern empirically oriented linguists of a description of a set of grammatical regularities characterizing a single (temporal, geographical, social, situational, etc.) variety of the language (cf. Klein & Dittmar 1979: 25; Senft 1982: 6). Rather it is what might be called a 'pragmatic natural grammar' — 'pragmatic' (cf. Mey 1979a: 10) in the sense that it attempts to explain what makes people understand each other when they speak face-to-face, and 'natural' (cf. Halliday 1985: xiii) in the sense that everything in it is experimentally testable and is ultimately explained by reference to how language, prosody, and kinesics are used in speech. From this it should be clear that the InterGrammar is not (cannot be) in any sense a replacement for standard linguistic sentence grammars or variety grammars; it is intended rather to complement and to extend such grammars in an attempt to explain important aspects of English face-to-face communication.

Introduction

7

In Chapter 1, "The Context of InterGrammar," we attempt to locate our approach within current linguistic theory. Methodologically, as Saussure (1916) said, linguistics is a science in which the subject of study is more a product than an object of investigation; that is, language is called into being by taking a particular point of view toward speech. Whereas in autonomous linguistics speech is traditionally viewed as evidence for the existence of unobservable relational or propositional systems, in nonautonomous linguistics it is viewed as a physiological process, or as a form of human behavior. Both branches of linguistics have traditionally posited their own theoretical objects according to criteria of pertinence, in order to account for otherwise disordered fields of introspective or empirical data. The real problem has never been so much which objects have been appointed as the central ones; the problem has been rather to decide whether there is a unified object of linguistic investigation or not (cf. Eco 1984: 5 — 7). The InterGrammar views speech from a nonautonomous perspective. Speech, in the InterGrammar, is something that goes on between people; it is the act of willful individuals constrained by the necessity of communicating with other members of their group. In Chapter 2, "Choice and Constraint in Linguistic Theory," we attempt to develop some of the theoretical and methodological implications of this viewpoint. The addition of the speaker as a willful individual to the speech paradigm necessitates a fundamental reconsideration of notions like choice and constraint. Until now, there has been little attempt to reconcile these notions; grammars have been taxonomies or rule systems describing constraints in isolation. Some means is needed of describing communicative choices and constraints in relation to each other: a framework in which both constraints on speech and people's freedom of choice within these constraints are clear. Such a framework is the first step toward accounting for what Lenk (1980) calls Entscheidungslogik, or the logic of communicative decisions. Mey (1981: vii) points out that conversation, like most other forms of human interaction, is basically unpredictable. In the InterGrammar we present a framework based on Peircean logic which enables us to account systematically for wide ranges of communicative and interpretive choices after they occur, without stipulating in advance which types of choices must necessarily occur. This, as Pike (1983) says, is necessary if the system is to handle human flexibility and human choice adequately.

8

Introduction

In Chapter 3, "Communicative Choices," we briefly introduce the basic verbal, prosodic, and kinesic choices dealt with in the InterGrammar: verbal choices among levels of formality and directness, prosodic choices of pitch nucleus placement, prominence and direction, and kinesic choices of body posture, facial expression, and eye contact. The available studies of these communicative choices are discussed in detail in Chapters 5, 6 and 7. All communicative choices are assumed to have reflective and projective aspects. On the one hand, they reflect people's perceptions, assumptions, and attitudes about what has happened in the conversation up to the moment they are made. On the other hand, they are generally modified or modulated so as to project a certain version of these perceptions, assumptions, and attitudes for the partner's benefit. In this sense, it is possible to view communicative choices as both caused and causal — a possibility that accounts for a good deal of the emotive complexity of speech (cf. Sarles 1977). Cognitive-emotional, interpersonal, and group-role dimensions of communicative choices are also discussed in this chapter. In Chapter 4, "Interpretive Choices," we introduce the basic concepts necessary for a complementary framework of interpretive choices. In the InterGrammar we view meaning as an emergent interactional phenomenon, not as a static property of speech. This implies two things: first, something like Peirce's idea of semiosis, according to which speech, like all semiotic activities, involves an infinite process of interpretation (cf. Eco 1984: 2); and second, that it takes (at least) two partners to negotiate meaning in conversation (cf. Mey 1979a: 13). Interpreting, like speaking, requires the ability to view events from two perspectives: one's own and one's partner's. This, more than anything, is what complicates discussions of terms like 'meaning,' 'understanding,' and 'interpretation' in the modern literature. One problem that must be resolved in accounting for how people communicate by speaking is the problem of interpretive consensus and interpretive variation. It is implicit in the fact that almost any communicative event can be interpreted similarly or differently by the people who witness it in a given situation, even if they are members of the same language community and share similar situational assumptions. The InterGrammar does not resolve this problem, but it does provide a systematic means of dealing with it. Interpretation is defined as the selection of plausible explanations of communicative events from among possible explanations. Various

Introduction

9

types of interpretations are viewed as more or less plausible, depending on factors such as the speaker's assumed intentionality and the partner's assumed level of ego-involvement or ego-threat in the situation. The InterGrammar interpretive schemata thus take a sort of uncertainty principle systematically into account, in recognition of the fact that inferential processes stand at the basis of all semiotic phenomena (cf. Eco 1984: 8). In Chapters 5, 6 and 7, we review the available interpretive research on the multimodal choices treated in the InterGrammar and discuss the relevance of these to the framework. In Chapter 5, "The Interpretation of Verbal Choices," we concentrate on studies of variations in verbal formality and directness. Levels of formality and directness are known to have important emotive functions in speech. There is general agreement that choices among levels of formality tend to reflect the degree to which people approach or avoid their partners, whereas choices among levels of directness reflect the degree to which they approach or avoid certain topics in the presence of their partners. The former tend to be used to regulate degrees of interpersonal involvement with partners, and the latter tend to be used to regulate levels of self-assertiveness. In Chapter 6, "The Interpretation of Prosodic Choices," we focus on pitch nucleus placement, pitch prominence, and pitch direction. Bolinger (1958b) and others argue convincingly that vocal expression is only superficially related to verbal expression in speech. Yet prosody interplays constantly with language, as both behavioral systems have a common human locus. The main function of pitch nucleus placement is to signal semantic salience; it indicates information that is central to the speaker's message, signals new information, or focuses the partner's attention on certain parts of the message and not on others. Pitch nucleus prominence, or the articulatory force of the pitch nucleus, is a kind of emotive salience-marker indicating the intensity of the speaker's feelings about his message. Pitch direction has important functions as a confidence cue. People tend to go down when they know the polarity of what they are saying, up when they do not know the polarity of what they are saying, and down and up in contingency environments where there is something more to be said, or where more is involved than simply what has been verbalized (cf. Halliday 1970a: 23). Intonation, like verbal directness, can thus also be used to regulate self-assertiveness.

10

Introduction

In Chapter 7, "The Interpretation of Kinesic Choices," we review the findings of clinical and social psychologists about the emotive functions of facial expression, gazing activity, and body posture. In the literature there are basically two approaches to explaining these kinesic cues: the psychological approach, in which they are viewed as autonomic nervous system activities signaling internal affective states, and the interactional approach, in which they are viewed as having important interpersonal communicative functions. Findings of both approaches are discussed. There is general agreement that a main function of facial expressions is to signal positive-negative feelings. Gaze and gaze aversion are important signals of attentiveness or interpersonal involvement. Body tension-relaxation is an intensity cue related to pitch prominence and verbal intensity. In Chapter 5, 6 and 7, verbal, prosodic, and kinesic choices are treated separately as aspects of quasi-independent communicative systems. Each major sub-section ends with a schema of primary and secondary interpretative alternatives drawn from the standard research on the behavior in question. Only broadly consensual interpretations are represented. Primary interpretations are alternatives for choices in the absence of further modifying or modulating emotive cues. Secondary interpretations are alternatives for cases where crossmodal cues impel the interpreter to revise or further elaborate primary interpretations. Together, these schemata summarize the relevant interpretive literature on the communicative choices treated in the InterGrammar. In Chapter 8, "Trimodal Patterning in Speech," these are integrated into a framework which can be applied to accounting for many types of redundant and contrastive cross-modal speech behavior. The framework allows us to approach face-to-face emotive communication from a systematic, unified, multimodal perspective. The first half of the chapter is devoted to putting the final framework together. In the second half of the chapter the framework is applied to explaining supportive and nonsupportive trimodal strategies for modulating assertiveness, positive-negative affect and interpersonal involvement in speech. We feel the InterGrammar offers a systematic approach to explaining important problems of face-to-face communication. We hope investigators will be encouraged to develop multimodal models of conversation in other languages, because multimodality is a central fact of speech.

Introduction

11

We would like to apologize to our women readers in advance for our use of third-person masculine pronouns in connection with concepts like 'the speaker', 'the partner', 'the investigator', etc. throughout the book. This admittedly unfair traditional practice was adopted to avoid unwieldy constructions such as 's/he', 'her-/himself, etc. in the text. Third-person masculine pronouns are thus generally to be understood as references to members of both sexes.

1. The Context of InterGrammar 1.1 Linguistic models, model objects and designated realities In introducing our schema we would like to point out, as Chomsky (1957: 17) does, that the 'realities' of language and communication are far too complex to be dealt with completely in any theoretical framework. This is true not only in linguistics, but in every branch of science. All linguistic approaches, regardless of their subjects, methods and eventual goals, are necessarily reductive in the sense that they proceed in terms of abstractions and analogies (cf. Bunge 1973: 92). Linguists, whether they wish to or not, must content themselves with accounting for schematized versions of the phenomena they study (cf. Bradac, Bowers & Courtright 1980:196). The fact that they use idealizations is not in itself open to question or criticism insofar as it is unlikely that any scientific work could proceed without such a step (cf. Moore & Carling 1982: 5). Nevertheless, critics are entitled to ask, and linguists are obligated to explain, which aspects of communication fall within the scope of their investigation and which fall outside it. In other words, they are obliged to state how reductive their approaches are, and to justify the scope of their conceptual frameworks (cf. Mathiot 1983 b: 152). No model of language or communication is a portrayal of anything in reality (see Figure 1): a linguistic model accounts for a model object which itself is a representation of some observed or imagined body of data which the model-maker designates as 'real' or 'factual' (cf. Bunge 1967a: 485 ff.; Janney 1981). We can think of the realities represented in linguistic models as designated realities.

1.1.1 Designated realities The number of interpretable audible and visible activities that present themselves at any moment of actual human speech is virtually uncountable (cf. Sarles 1977: 41 ff.). Certain neurological screening mechanisms filter and pre-evaluate incoming sensory stimuli before they are consciously perceived (cf. Pribram 1971; Rock 1975). Other

14

1. The Context of InterGrammar

Figure 1. Relationships between linguistic models, model objects and designated realities (cf. Janney 1981: 425)

anticipatory schemata — products of training and experience — lead us to expect particular patterns of perception (cf. Neisser 1976; Massad, Hubbard & Newtson 1979; Atkinson & Allen 1983). Biopsychological and sociocultural factors channel our attention toward some types of phenomena and away from others. The former act as perceptual defenses, preventing us from being overloaded by sensory

1.1 Linguistic models, model objects and designated realities

15

information (cf. McGinnies 1949); the latter act as perceptual shortcuts, enabling us to skip over details we assume are present. In some cases, this can lead us to perceive patterns which are not actually present in the raw sensory input. Such perceptions are the contributions of our preconceptions to our own data pool; they may be stored in the mind in such a way that it ultimately becomes impossible to distinguish internally-generated perceptions from externally-generated ones (cf. White & Carlston 1983: 540). Nevertheless, the phenomena perceived and perhaps thus modified constitute our perceived reality at any moment (cf. Colby 1966). After perception, a memory of perceived reality is retained which, structured and stored in the brain, enables us to recognize patterns and to infer interrelationships among them. Our perceptual experience is thus internalized as conceptualized reality. This 'imaginal representation' (cf. Rankin 1963) of perceived reality need not necessarily be isomorphic with the sensory input. That is, there need be no direct one-to-one relationship between our concepts and the stimuli that cause them, even in cases where we have words that symbolize these relationships vaguely. One reason why research in language and communication sometimes results in paradoxical or contradictory findings is that investigators tend to take such isomorphy for granted. They assume that there is a necessary correspondence between their concepts and the communicative phenomena they perceive. In fact, the reality attributed to perceptions of linguistic and other communicative activities is highly relative. It is what we might term a conceptualized designated reality. Language may be viewed as such a conceptualized designated reality: a product of the cognitive-emotional events aroused in linguists' consciousness by the features of communication they habitually perceive and the contexts in which they habitually perceive these. In discussing the phenomena accounted for in models of language or communication it is thus important to remember the relativity of the notion of reality. Cognitively, there is little difference between externally- and internally-generated 'facts'. Facts of both types may be designated as realities and may serve as objects of cognition for the model maker. It is useful to imagine these as falling broadly into two categories (see Figure 2): (1) observational, or facts assumed to exist in what the investigator designates as spatio-temporal reality (e. g., communicative events and processes such as individual utterances, intonations and kinesic gestures, and sequences of these); and

16

1. The Context of InterGrammar

(2) introspective, or facts that may not be directly observable but are assumed to exist in what the investigator designates as normative reality (e.g., concepts or formulas related to verbal, prosodic, kinesic and other semiotic systems, and the rules thought to constitute or regulate these systems, cf. Itkonen 1981: 127 ff.). Introspective facts cannot be seen, heard or experienced in any direct manner; they are products of inference and are commonly (metaphorically) said to exist beneath the surface of, or to be exemplified by, observable communicative events and processes (cf. Bunge 1967b: 156). Concepts

e. g., verbal, prosodic, kinesic systems, etc.

Formulas

e. g., constitutive, regulative, variant rules, etc.

Events

e. g., utterances intonations, body gestures, etc.

Introspective

Designated realities

Observational Processes

e. g., sequences of verbal, vocal, kinesic, etc. behaviors

Figure 2. Designated realities in linguistic models

1.1.2 Model objects In order to construct a model of linguistic reality, whether observational or introspective, it is necessary to abstract certain recurrent features out of the whole of one's perceptions to serve as a model object (cf. Davis 1973: 1; Strauss 1979: 243; Chomsky 1979: 73). A model object is a sort of hypothetical sketch of the linguistic or communicative phenomena accounted for in the model (cf. Bunge 1973: 92). As such, it is an idealization and is inherently reductive (cf. Faules & Alexander 1978: 10). Because it is analogical, it bears only a partial resemblance to the phenomena it stands for. It represents only those sets or classes of perceptual experience — pat-

1.1 Linguistic models, model objects and designated realities

17

terned, repetitious, limited, and relatively few in number — which the model maker can account for systematically within his conceptual framework (cf. Sarles 1977: 43). Model objects miss certain traits of the designated realities they represent. They ignore most of the individual variations within classes of perceptions and discard most of the details of individual perceptions (cf. Bunge 1973: ch. 5). They recapture the relations between classes of perceptions only approximately, and are apt to include imaginary elements. Sarles (1977: 62) points out the interesting process of reification by which language is given various attributes as a model object once its existence is designated: Since it exists, a multitude of properties can be imputed to it or taken away from it. Language is, variously, meaning, sound, lexicon, structure, digital, symbolic, expressive, emotive; it is not culture, paralanguage, analogue, emotion, extralinguistic.

There is no direct path from designated realities to theoretical models (cf. Chomsky 1979: 68). The model object, presumably the connection between the perceived 'facts' and the theoretical framework accounting for these (a grammar, descriptive taxonomy, etc.) is essentially a product of intuition or abductive reasoning (cf. Peirce 1931). The linguist, reflecting on his own observations or introspections, focuses on some characteristic or relation among these which he intuitively recognizes as being typical of some assumption already stored in his mind, and a hypothesis is suggested that appears to account for the relation. He builds the relation into his model object and integrates the explanatory hypothesis into his model as a concept, rule, or postulate (cf. Peirce 1931: 497).

1.1.3 Linguistic models A model is a restricted list of constructs describing or interpreting the interrelationships among the sets or classes of phenomena represented analogically by its object (cf. Lanigan 1983: 157). In linguistics and communication research the term model has come to be used increasingly in the sense of schema — from the Greek 'position'. A model, in this sense, is a systematic framework in which items and their relationships may be classified with regard to certain classes of phenomena, actions, or operations, on the basis of particular aims, biases, or assumptive networks (cf. Strauss 1979). Linguistic models

18

1. The Context

of

InterGrammar

have traditionally been taxonomic, or classificatory; they are based on class-member relationships (cf. Saussure 1916; Bloomfield 1933; Fries 1952; Chomsky 1965). A taxonomic model of language may include a set of primitive linguistic units (e.g., constituents), a set of axioms or postulates stipulating how these may be combined, and a sub-set of definitions stating how different sets or classes of primitive linguistic units interrelate. The patterns exhibited by data collected from a language community are assumed to be fully accounted for when the data are assigned their places in the taxonomy (cf. Davis 1973: 8). Linguists employing taxonomic models traditionally assume that classification, description and explanation are synonymous. One of the difficulties with such models is their relative inability to deal with language variation beyond the grammatical level; only patterns of language conforming to their axioms or postulates may be described and thus accounted for within them. As a great deal of everyday speech is fragmentary out of context, the main effect of the taxonomic approach has been to render a great amount of everyday speech unaccountable. Linguists in growing numbers, however, recently have begun attempting to formulate linguistic models incorporating variation (e. g., stylistic, strategic, situational, social, etc.) into their primary postulates (cf. Ervin-Tripp 1971; Labov 1972b; halliday 1978). This requires a new way of relating members and their classes which is not taxonomic. Whereas taxanomic models tend to contain statements such as 'X is a member of class Y', the newer approach contains statements more on the order of 'X is a member of class Y in situation Z, but a member of class A in situation B.' The effect of incorporating dynamic postulates into nontaxonomic linguistic models is to pave the way for what Lamb (1966), Halliday (1978), Pike (1982), and others refer to as 'realizational statements' — statements such as: 'an X becomes a Y' 'an X yields a Y'

1.1 Linguistic models, model objects and designated realities

19

'an X is replaced by a Y' 'an X may be substituted for a Y.' Models of this sort are somewhat better suited for conceptualizing variant phenomena such as stylistic shifts, shifts in levels of directness, subject-object shifts, and a number of other strategically important types of language variation in everyday speech. There is hope that nontaxonomic models of this sort may eventually enable linguists to begin accounting for everyday speech variation more systematically than in the past.

1.1.4 Implications Both linguistic models and model objects are in a sense hypothetical sketches of supposedly 'real', though possibly fictitious, linguistic facts, either observational or introspective (cf. Bunge 1973: 91). A model is a conceptual system which accounts for a model object; a model object, in turn, is a conceptualization which analogically represents some designated linguistic reality. Although it represents reality, it is not the reality it represents. Reduction and abstraction are thus inherent aspects of the modeling relation. Language and communication may be modeled in virtually any number of ways: as 'systems of pure values' (cf. Saussure 1916), 'systems for voluntary symbolic expression' (cf. Sapir 1921), 'means of social action' (cf. Jespersen 1924), 'systems of habits' (cf. Hockett 1958), 'metaphors' (cf. Sarles 1977), 'social meta-institutions' (cf. Halliday 1978), 'mental organs' (cf. Chomsky 1979), 'epiphenomena on the world as language users perceive it' (cf. Moore & Carling 1982), 'verbal and nonverbal co-systems' (cf. Poyatos 1983), and so on. Such model objects may be grafted onto other general theories, say genetic, psychological, neurological, mathematical, sociological, etc., or expanded into fullfledged hypothetico-deductive systems in their own right (cf. Bunge 1973: 91). In any case, a specific theoretical model of a real or imagined linguistic or communicative 'fact' results. Whether the object referred to by a linguistic model is an accurate representation of the reality it is supposed to represent is something that cannot be subjected to direct observational-experimental verification. Model objects are products of intuition, hunch, educated guesswork, abductive reasoning — the term depends on one's point of

20

1. The Context of InterGrammar

view. The extremely general theories onto which model objects may have been grafted cannot be verified either. Finally, only linguistic models themselves are subject to testing. Models claiming to account for introspective realities may be tested for their generality, simplicity, and internal self-consistency (cf. Davis 1973: 5). Models claiming to account for observational realities can be tested for their predictive strength, degree of fit with observable events, and explanatory power (cf. Bunge 1967b: 172 ff.). The relative observational testability of linguistic and communicative models is thus related to the nature of the designated realities they are intended to account for. If a model accounts for an observational reality (i. e., a spatio-temporal reality), its object is considered to be an idealization·, if it purports to account for an introspective reality (i.e., an intuitive reality), its object is considered to be an idealization of an idealization (cf. Bunge 1973: 92; Janney 1981). Models of the latter sort tend to be empirically untestable (cf. Chomsky 1980: 51).

1.2 Autonomous and nonautonomous linguistic exemplars A model per se is but one component of the larger disciplinary matrix in which the linguist approaches his subject. In the linguist's milieu, broad constellations of group commitment distinguish colleagues who may be responsive to one's research interests and methods from colleagues who may attack them. This is important both socially and intellectually, insofar as a sense of shared commitment is necessary for continuity and cooperation in research. Intergroup rivalries provide checks on research, forcing linguists to step out of their perspectives periodically and question where their work fits with that of their colleagues in different areas. Intragroup solidarity and intergroup rivalry are driving social forces of linguistic thought. The components of group commitments include shared assumptions about (1) systems of theoretical generalizations defining subjects of investigation, (2) preferred analogies, models, and metaphors accounting for subjects, (3) the human, social, intellectual, and ethical values implicit in these analogies, models, and metaphors,

1.2 Autonomous and nonautonomous linguistic exemplars

21

and (4) tacit modes of perceiving linguistic phenomena (cf. Kuhn 2/ 1970: 174 ff.). Group commitments of these kinds are tacitly present in all linguistic studies (cf. Chomsky 1979: 70). They are natural products of the socialization process by which members of the linguistic community first learn, and later illustrate, the models, goals, and methods to which they subscribe. Commitments to 'methodological exemplars' (cf. Kuhn 2/1970: 200), 'paradigms' (cf. Verbürg 1974: 191), or simply 'traditions' (cf. Hymes 1974b: 1) indirectly influence not only linguists' choices of subjects, but also their strategies of posing questions and doing research (cf. Sarles 1977: 82). For this reason, in introducing a new linguistic schema it is important to show where the schema fits into the group dynamics of the field. It is said that the practice of any normal science depends on the ability, acquired from methodological exemplars, to group phenomena into similar classes which are primitive in the sense that the grouping may be done without asking the question, 'similar with respect to what?' (cf. Kuhn 2/1970: 200). In linguistics this question continues to elicit conflicting answers, as do such other basic methodological questions as 'what is language?', 'what is a linguistic phenomenon?', 'can language be studied in vacuoT, 'are linguistic realities observational or introspective?', and so on. Paraphrasing Saussure, Chomsky (1979: 46) argues that a discipline should not be defined by its procedures but by its objects of investigation: for linguists language is the object. Yet Saussure himself was well aware of the difficulty of stating precisely what defines language as an object of study: Other sciences work with objects that are given in advance and that can then be considered from different viewpoints; but not linguistics ... Far from it being the object that antedates the viewpoint, it would seem that [in linguistics] it is the viewpoint that creates the object (cf. Saussure 1916: 23, quoted in translation by Yngve 1981: 43).

Saussure plainly viewed language as a product rather than an object of perception. The implication of this idea is that, in the absence of everything but their viewpoints, linguists have little choice indeed but to define their discipline by its procedures. For purposes of the following discussion, we shall thus distinguish among linguistic exemplars in terms of the modes of perceiving and conceptualizing linguistic phenomena implicit in the analogies and theoretical schemata used by members of different groups within the linguistic community.

22

1. The Context of InterGrammar

Until roughly the turn of the century, few linguists distinguished carefully between what we have come to think of as system and behavior in language. In the eighteenth century, Priestly (1761), Lowth (1762), Murray (1795), and other British linguists working in the rhetorical tradition defined grammar as the art of using words properly. In the nineteenth century, Sweet (1892:1,4) wrote, "Grammar may be regarded either from a theoretical or a practical point of view. From the theoretical point of view, grammar is the science of language .... From a practical point of view, grammar is the art of language." At the beginning of the twentieth century, Saussure's (1916) Cours de Linguistique Generale put an end to the unity of grammar and rhetoric by introducing the distinction between langue, the semiotic code maintained in the collective consciousness of a language community, and parole, the manifold realizations of this code in everyday speech and writing. The introduction of this dualism into western linguistics, which was prefigured by Humboldt's (1836) ergon-energeia dichotomy, had the effect of separating language as system from language as action: the study of grammar was thus defined once and for all as an autonomous science. During the next few decades, the study of language behavior was relegated mainly to sociologists and anthropologists (cf. Meillet 1926; Boas 1911; Sapir 1921; Malinowski 1935), and the study of language system became the province of linguists. More recently the terms nonautonomous and autonomous linguistics have come to identify the contrasting viewpoints of these two approaches; their major exemplars are represented in Figure 3 (cf. Arndt 1981). Relational

Linguistic exemplars Neurological Psychological Sociocultural Interpersonal Figure 3. Linguistic exemplars

1.2 Autonomous and nonautonomous linguistic exemplars

23

Within the autonomous approach, language is implicitly viewed as a purely relational or propositional system which can be described, analyzed, or explained without reference to the extralinguistic contexts of its use. Within the nonautonomous approach, it is viewed as a human behavioral process which must be studied within the context of the other behavioral processes in which it is embedded. The entities comprising the object language are patterns of behavior. Being a symbolic system, language is seen to overlap with and to include the other behavioral systems which figure in human communication (cf. Scott 1980: 52). Nonautonomous exemplars may be subdivided into (a) those which adopt an intraorganism perspective (e. g., neurological, psychological) in defining dimensions of this broader behavioral context relevant to the study of language, and (b) those adopting an interorganism perspective (e. g., sociocultural, sociopsychological) in defining these dimensions (cf. Halliday 1978).

1.2.1 Autonomous e x e m p l a r s 1.2.1.1 Language as a relational system Linguists subscribing to this exemplar study language as a purely formal system of structural relations existing independently of individual speakers or speaking contexts. The theoretical constructs postulated by such linguists in analyzing language (e. g., sounds, words, meanings, etc.) are assumed to derive both their essence and existence from their relationships with other units in the language system (cf. Lyons 1977: 232 — 232). The goal of such linguists is to formulate explicit definitions of linguistic units and categories and to devise operational rule systems prescribing the syntactic combinations which are possible in the languages they study (cf. van Dijk 1983: 21) The formal features of languages and the rules said to comprise language systems are idealized away from and theoretically distinguished from actual language behavior — which is assumed to be governed by rules of an entirely different order. The rules constituting language systems (e. g., grammatical rules) are said to be theoretically primary in the sense that without them, language would be impossible. The rules governing language behavior (e.g., sociocultural rules) are thought to be theoretically uninteresting insofar as they only regulate the practices made possible by constitutive rules (cf. Kant 1787;

24

1. The Context of InterGrammar

Chimb 1972: 24 ff.). Representatives of this view of language would include Saussure (1916), Bloomfield (1933), Harris (1951), Fries (1952), Halle (1959), Chomsky (1957,1965), Lyons (1977), and others. 1.2.1.2 Language as a propositional system

Adherents to this exemplar study language primarily as a mode of cognition and an object of logical or philosophical inquiry. Working out of either the continental hermeneutic tradition or the AngloSaxon analytical tradition, they focus on epistemological and pragmatic questions raised by the linguistic nature of human thought and expression, and on the formal logic of linguistic and metalinguistic argumentation (cf. Parret 1980: 4). Problems of meaning and understanding occupy an important position within this exemplar, as do issues of linguistic methodology and linguistic explanation. The goal of those subscribing to this exemplar is to construct self-consistent logical arguments clarifying the problems and issues suggested by the unique relationships between concepts, symbols, and their referents in human expression. Representatives of this approach would include Ogden & Richards (1923), Peirce (1931), Wittgenstein (1968), Austin (1962), Grice (1969), Strawson (1970), Searle (1972), Itkonen (1974), Rommetveit (1979a), and others.

1.2.2 Nonautonomous exemplars 1.2.2.1 Intraorganism exemplars 1.2.2.1.1 Language as a neurological

phenomenon

Linguists subscribing to this exemplar study language in connection with the brain and the central nervous system. The structures and functions of various parts of the brain anatomy (e. g., left and right sides of the neocortex, limbic lobe, brainstem etc.) are assumed to affect the production, perception, and interpretation of language behavior in complex, interrelated ways. The goal of linguists working in this field is to discover these interrelationships by means of experimentation and observation. Among the issues of interest in neurolinguistic studies are the relative influences of various masses of neural tissue in the cortical and subcortical regions on propositional

1.2 Autonomous

and nonautonomous

linguistic exemplars

25

and affective components of speech, the neurological processes operant in the control and modulation of affective expression, and the contribution of the brainstem and other subcortical structures to speech activities. According to neurolinguistic findings, the parameters of control within the brain are distributed in a roughly balanced manner: the left hemisphere seems dominant in the discrimination and manipulation of linguistic units within wholes (e.g., phonemes within words, words within syntactic structures, etc.), and the right hemisphere seems more specialized in the recognition and production of larger structures which serve as frameworks for smaller ones (e. g., intonation contours as frameworks for syntactic combinations, vocal and kinesic gestures as qualifiers or modifiers of verbal messages, etc.) (cf. Arndt & Stewart 1983; Arndt & Janney 1986; Arndt, Janney & Schaffranek 1986). Representatives of this exemplar would include Penfield & Roberts (1959), Ohala (1970), Aaronson & Rieber (1975), Whitaker & Whitaker (1976, 1977), Dalton & Hardcastle (1977), Dingwall (1978,1981), Ross (1981), Crystal (1981), Peuser (1977, 1978, 1984), Goodglass (1978) and others. 1.2.2.1.2 Language as a psychological

phenomenon

Adherents to this exemplar study language in relation to mental cognitive-emotional processes using the methods of experimental psychology. Working out of either behavioralist or cognitive psychological traditions, they focus on phenomena such as language acquisition, language perception, and language recall. Efforts have branched in essentially two directions: towards the assessment of personality variables influencing the production and perception of language, and towards the development of language translating machines, speaking computers, and other language processing technology based on artificial intelligence. Another focus of interest within this exemplar has traditionally been the experimental testing of psychological conclusions drawn from the hypotheses of linguistic theory; the issue of the psychological reality of linguistic concepts has occupied a prominent position for many in this field. Cognitive psychologists were among the first to work out the now well-known assumption that understanding language presupposes vast amounts of extralinguistic general knowledge about the world (cf. van Dijk 1983: 23). Representatives of this exemplar would include Osgood (1953), Osgood & Sebeok (1965), Bever (1968b), Staats (1968), Hörmann (1970, 1976),

26

1. The Context of InterGrammar

DeVito (1970), Slobin (1971), Kintsch (1972), Miller & JohnsonLaird (1976), Levelt & Flores d'Arcais (1978), List (1981) and others. 1.2.2.2 Interorganism e x e m p l a r s 1.2.2.2.1

Language

as a sociocultural

phenomenon

Linguists working within this exemplar study language in relation to the institutionalized social or cultural contexts in which it is used. In this view, language behavior is governed by social conventions, group norms, and cultural expectations, which the language user learns in the course of being integrated into his society, with its characteristic ways of perceiving, interpreting, and expressing reality (cf. Helt 1982). The two major perspectives within this approach are the anthropological-ethnographical perspective, which focuses on cultural and geographical aspects of language use and language variation, and the sociological perspective, which focuses on the influence of social status, social class, education, sex, and other group variables on language use. The function of language in the group is a central issue for both ethno- and sociolinguists, as are issues of language variation, language change, language maintenance, language loyalty, etc. Representatives of this approach would be Boas (1911), Sapir (1921), Malinowski (1935), Weinreich (1953), Whorf (1956), Hertzler (1965), Hymes (1966), Bernstein (1971), Fishman (1971), Labov (1972b), Halliday (1973, 1974, 1978), and others. 1.2.2.2.2

Language

as an interpersonal

phenomenon

Adherents to this exemplar study language in relation to the face-toface contexts of interpersonal communication in which it occurs. Language behavior is viewed in this approach as the action of a willful ego constrained by the necessity of expressing his thoughts, feelings and intentions to other members of his group. The locus of this approach is neither the individual speaker nor the group, but rather the individual speaker within the group as a participant in communicative interaction with a partner. The two major perspectives within the approach are (1) the ethnomethodological perspective, which concerns itself with dyadic interactional aspects of conversation such as question-answer sequences, turn-taking maneuvers, conversational openings and closings, and the role of shared assumptions in

1.2 Autonomous

and nonautonomous

linguistic exemplars

27

verbal interaction, and (2) the sociopsychological perspective, which focuses on speech production, perception and interpretation from the viewpoint of the role-taking, role-making speaker-listener who must be able to project himself into the position of his partner in order to communicate successfully (i. e., as a speaker, to predict his partner's responses to what and how he expresses himself; as a listener, to infer his partner's thoughts, feelings and intentions from what and how the partner expresses himself)· A central problem of verbal interaction for ethnomethodologists is how speakers achieve coordination. A central problem for sociopsycholinguists is how speakers' attitudes towards one another (e. g., perceived balances of power and affiliation, interpersonal intentions) affect their choices of communicative styles and strategies and their inferences about their partners' choices. Representatives of this exemplar would include Mead (1934), Pike (1954 ff.), Allport (1960), Schutz (1964), Goffman (1967), Garfinkel (1967), Sacks (1972), Schegloff (1972), Cicourel (1974), Giles & Powesland (1975), Giles & St. Clair (1979) and the present authors (cf. Arndt 1978; Arndt & Janney 1979b, 1980, 1981a, 1981b, 1983, 1984a, 1984b, 1985a, 1985b, 1986; Janney 1981, 1983; Arndt, Janney & Pesch 1984; Arndt, Janney & Schaffranek 1986). That the exemplars listed above provide at best a very rough idea of the interests and assumptions of various schools of modern linguists should be self-evident. Yet the generality of such a taxonomy has a certain clarifying effect on the nature of the linguistic disciplinary matrix mentioned at the beginning of this section. The progression from Exemplar 1 (language as a relational system) to Exemplar 6 (language as an interpersonal phenomenon) illustrates two methodological tendencies in contemporary linguistics which have become sources of considerable controversy in recent decades, as we shall point out in the following section. The first has to do with linguists' perceptions of language, or semiotic systems generally, and with their generalizations about the nature of the rules governing these. The second has to do with their perceptions of human beings and the nature of the constraints governing human communicative behavior (cf. Gumb 1972; Itkonen 1975). Both tendencies are supported by strong ideological commitments within the linguistic community. As one moves from autonomous to nonautonomous exemplars, the notion of language as an object of study becomes progressively broader. The number of factors which the linguist must take into consideration in making inferences about his object increases as the

28

I. The Context of InterGrammar

level of idealization of his approach decreases (cf. Hymes 1967). Each decrease in idealization increases the need to incorporate more provisions for variation into the theoretical schema (cf. Halliday 1978: 38; Rommetveit 1979c: 154; Gebauer 1980: 405). Variability is a characteristic of human behavior, while invariability is a characteristic of formal systems. The higher the level of idealization at the formal level, the lower the level of generalizability at the human behavioral level. Conversely, the higher the level of generalizability at the human level, the lower the level of formal precision within the theoretical schema (cf. Anttila 1975; Itkonen 1975). Thus the linguist is always faced with a choice between compromises: insofar as formal systems cannot account for things not included within their scope (i.e., represented by their model objects), the linguist must choose between formal precision and human accountability in constructing his model of language. The choice for one automatically reduces the system's usefulness with respect to the other. This paradox is one of the central issues of contemporary linguistics. The question is one of priorities: does the linguist opt for formal precision or for human accountability?

1.3 Linguistic ideologies A notion implicit in the preceding section is that linguists carry various quasi-theological, metaphysical assumptions about the nature of language into their observations and inferences about linguistic systems and processes (cf. Sarles 1977: 16) — and that assumptions about language tacitly involve assumptions about man. Commitments to such assumptions govern not so much the subjects studied as they do the behavior of linguists themselves, as members of the linguistic community (cf. Kuhn 2/1970: 180). Group commitments to the values implicit in such assumptions — or linguistic ideologies as we shall call them in this section — serve many purposes. At the growing edge of all sciences, as Tomkins (1981: 306) points out, there is uncertainty, and what is lacking in concrete evidence tends to be replaced by passion and faith, and by scorn for disbelievers and competitors. A linguistic ideology may be defined as a systematic

1.3 Linguistic

ideologies

29

body of ideas and attitudes about the nature of language, organized from a particular point of view, whose primary function is the conservation of a linguistic exemplar and thus the protection and preservation of linguists adhering to its goals and methods (cf. Kress & Hodge 1979: 6; Gebauer 1980: 428). A linguistic ideology also involves a group's assumptions about the social identity of its members. Thus, to be committed to a particular linguistic ideology is also to be committed to a particular identity within the broader linguistic community, and to attack another's ideological position is also to attack his social identity as a linguist. This accounts at least in part for the rhetoric involved in discussions of linguistic objects, goals, and methods during the past few decades.

1.3.1 Formalist versus instrumentalist ideologies The history of linguistics is largely an unresolved commentary on the proper relationships between formalist and instrumentalist views of language (cf. Lyons 1968: 270 ff.; Halliday 1973: 22 ff.; Tyler 1978: 4 ff.). These dichotomous views, institutionalized in dualities such as ergon-energeia (cf. Humboldt 1836), langue-parole (cf. Saussure 1916) and competence-performance (cf. Chomsky 1965), have traditionally formed the basis of contention between linguists. Proponents of autonomous and intraorganism perspectives have generally stood on one side, and proponents of interorganism views on the other. Due to what Tomkins (1981: 308) refers to as 'the imperfect competition in the conceptual marketplace,' formalist and instrumentalist concepts and models have received preferential treatment or have been discriminated against at various times by linguistic groups in power. Ideological differences have far-reaching perceptual consequences. To the extent that members of ideologically opposing camps tend to respond systematically differently to the same linguistic phenomena, they may almost be said to live in different worlds (cf. Kuhn 2/1970: 193). Behind the formalist-instrumentalist conflict stand dichotomous perceptions not only of what constitutes 'language,' but perhaps more important in the present context, of what constitutes 'linguistic facts,' 'objectivity,' and 'serious linguistics' as well (cf. Hymes 1974b). Within formalist ideology, language is viewed as a system of rules and relations (cf. Lyons 1968: 52), or as a system for expressing thought (cf. Chomsky 1976: 56). Saussure (1916) said there is essen-

30

1. The Context of InterGrammar

tially no place for natural linguistic data in formalist thinking: the object of study is a system of pure values which are determined by nothing but the momentary arrangement of its terms (cf. Lane 1970: 55). Language is thus idealized as pure form and viewed as a cognitive structure rather than a type of behavior. It is implicitly something which exists in the mind rather than in any observable spatio-temporal context (cf. Chomsky 1976: 4). For this reason, formalists have traditionally argued that the rules describing structures of language have no logical relation to language behavior — which is only their outward manifestation. Formalists fall back on Saussure's (1916) analogy, pointing out that the rules of language have no more relation to the description of language behavior than the rule system of chess has to the description of the pieces used to play the game (cf. Lyons 1968: 59). Within instrumentalist ideology, on the other hand, the essence of language is social action. Jespersen (1924) said language is "activity on the part of one individual to make himself understood by another, and activity on the part of that other to understand what was in the mind of the first" (cf. Jespersen 10/1968: 17). For instrumentalists, language is thus something that goes on between people (cf. Halliday 1978: 57), or something people do in order to accomplish things in the world and to make statements about it (cf. Makkai 1975: 38; Tyler 1978: 7). Saussure's chess analogy, they point out, is true only from an observer's perspective (cf. Gumb 1972: 26); from an actor's perspective, there is no distinction between the rules constituting a game and the presumably lower-order rules regulating the actual playing of the game. For the speaker, all forms of linguistic knowledge have both constitutive and regulative aspects. In order to interact successfully with others, the speaker has to have an intuitive sense not only of what is 'correct', but also of what is 'appropriate' in language behavior. On an everyday basis, the two types of knowledge are indistinguishable. A speaker who did not give equal importance to constitutive and regulative aspects of language would soon discover, like a dancer who had learned the steps of a dance but not how to coordinate them with his partner's, that he was acting alone. Until relatively recently, instrumentalist views of language and communication were out of fashion in mainstream linguistics. Formalist concepts tended to dominate the theoretical and experimental landscape in various alliances between transformational-generative linguists and psycholinguists and in quasi-mathematical models of

1.3 Linguistic

ideologies

31

languages spoken by 'ideal' speaker-hearers — the formalists' version of partnerless dancers (cf. Chomsky 1965: 3). One consequence of the dominance of the TG school, with its vital interest in the mental processes underlying language, was a systematic closing-off of the study of social language behavior to linguists who wished to be taken seriously by the majority of their colleagues (cf. Hymes 1971: 49). Chomsky (1965: 4), for example, proclaimed: ... linguistic theory is mentalistic, since it is concerned with discovering the mental reality underlying actual behavior. Observed use of language or hypothesized dispositions to respond, habits, and so on, may provide evidence as to the nature of this reality, but surely cannot constitute the actual subject matter of linguistics, if this is to be a serious discipline.

As instrumentalists began joining forces, the tenor of linguistic discussion became increasingly aggressive until it reached something of a climax in the early seventies with Searle's (1972: 19) statement: The purpose of language is communication in much the same sense that the purpose of the heart is to pump blood. In both cases it is possible to study the structure independently of the function, but pointless and perverse to do so, since structure and function so obviously interact.

The argument was rejected by formalists such as Chomsky (1976: 56 — 57), who replied: There is ... a very respectable tradition ... that regards as a vulgar distortion the 'instrumental view' of language as 'essentially' a means of communication, or a means to achieve given ends.

The issue at stake in such exchanges was hardly whether it is possible to study language as a mental system or as a social process. Certainly both formalists and instrumentalists demonstrated the feasibility of their approaches long before the rebirth of interest in social accountability in the sixties. Rather, the issue was — and still is — a matter of ideological conviction and group identity; it may be supported, but not resolved by methodological argumentation. The question whether language is thought or action is the linguistic counterpart to the traditional mind-body speculations of philosophers which received so much attention in psychology and neurobiology throughout the fifties and sixties (cf. Laslett 1950; Abramson 1952; Delafresnaye 1954; Hook 1959; Scher 1962; Eccles 1964; Smythies 1965; Corning & Balaban 1968; Rupp 1968; Koestler & Smythies 1971).

32

1. The Context of InterGrammar

Ultimately, concepts such as 'form' and 'function,' 'thought' and 'action,' 'mind' and 'body,' 'language system' and 'language behavior' are little more than conceptual or logical distinctions the linguist makes (or does not make) within the context of his theoretical orientation (cf. Tibbetts 1973: 117ff.). As we said, linguistic models are simply systems of concepts organized from particular points of view. From this perspective, linguistic structures, processes, competencies, and performances are alternative logical constructs (cf. Tolman 1935) for conceptualizing experience. The usefulness of a linguistic concept or schema is determined by the ease with which it enables the linguist to form testable hypotheses about the nature of language as he experiences it. He chooses one schema or another, depending on the kinds of hypotheses he is interested in formulating. Because theoretical frameworks vary greatly with respect to the presuppositions, subjects, and variables they attempt to account for, the linguist tends to turn toward autonomous models, for example, to explain language systems, toward psychological or neurological models to account for language recall, toward sociological or sociopsychological models to account for choices among language styles and strategies, and so on. Given the diversity of concepts viewed as fundamental within models of these different types, it is doubtful that linguists will ever develop common frameworks. Concepts such as 'syntax,' 'deep structure,' 'style,' 'speech strategy,' 'meaning' and 'understanding' no more correspond to anything in reality than do concepts like 'culture,' 'equator', and '3:00 p.m.'. Nevertheless, investigators reify such linguistic concepts into substantial entities, ignoring their postulatory status, and continue to argue over ideological positions in deadly earnest. It should be emphasized here that statements such as 'language performance is impossible without linguistic competence' or 'there is no language without speech' are conceptually misleading; they imply that the constituent concepts are somehow concrete, causally related entities. In fact these concepts come from different logical categories, and the statements resemble sentences philosophers traditionally use to illustrate 'category mistakes', such as 'what happens to the current when the river dries up?' (cf. Tibbetts 1973: 118). To imagine that linguists' arguments over language systems and language behavior center around proper approaches to explaining concrete, causally interrelated things is to make a category mistake. Philosophically, the issues separating formalists and instrumentalists are methodological;

1.3 Linguistic

ideologies

33

disputes about these are disputes about the logical categories that should be used given certain theoretical assumptions. Ultimately linguists cannot avoid consciously or subconsciously adopting positions with regard to the formalist-instrumentalist debate and its consequences for their work. They can, however, be aware of the subjective nature of this debate and recognize the essentially practical character of their choices among linguistic models, metaphors, and methods. Each branch of linguistics has traditionally claimed the right to decide what questions are worth answering and what facts should be taken into account in answering them (cf. Halliday 1978: 3). Since the early decades of this century, however, certain types of linguistic questions have received preferential treatment in what autonomous linguists — the ideologically dominant group — have defined as 'the field' or 'mainstream linguistics' (cf. Hymes 1974 b: 13). In claims that behavioral accounts of language are too subjective to explain the 'facts underlying the data' (cf. Chomsky & Halle 1968: 30), terms such as 'language', 'subjective,' 'facts' and 'data' have been used as counters in an ideological power struggle. As such, the terms are little more than metaphors which prejudge the observation and analysis of linguistic phenomena to fit the prevailing views of the formalists (cf. Sarles 1977: 70). During the past few decades, linguistics has experienced something of a turn in the ideological tides away from the formalist orientation towards a more instrumental one. The term increasingly used to identify this period is 'Post-Chomskyan linguistics' (cf. Arndt 1981). In the following section, we discuss some of the questions raised by this shift of perspective.

1.3.2 The limitations of ideological argumentation The starting point of the change in contemporary linguistics was a growing dissatisfaction with a great deal of work being done in theoretical linguistics (cf. Koerner 1975; Moore & Carling 1982: 1 — 16). Opposition developed to what many linguists viewed as the excessive concern with formal logic in transformational-generative theory, and its relative indifference to observation and empirical confirmation. The main issues were Chomsky's (1965: 3—4) insistence on a rigid conceptual distinction between linguistic competence (the speaker-hearer's knowledge of his language) and linguistic perform-

34

1. The Context of InterGrammar

ance (the actual use of language in concrete situations), his pivotal notion of the ideal speaker-listener (a member of a completely homogeneous speech-community who is unaffected by extralinguistic factors in applying his perfect knowledge of language in actual performance), and his relative disregard for the status of semantics in linguistic theory. Within the transformational-generative movement itself, the secondary status of semantics in Chomsky's standard and extended standard theories (cf. Chomsky 1965, 1971) was interpreted by critics as a radical separation of the notion of linguistic structure from the notion of meaning (cf. Anttila 1975; Itkonen 1974). Philosophers of language pointed out a central epistemological dilemma in the separation of competence from performance: to the extent that intrinsic knowledge of language was separated from the intersubjective use of this knowledge, the theory focused on a private language (cf. Saunders & Henze 1967; Itkonen 1975): a language which was conceptually independent of any intersubjective public language and thus logically unimaginable as a means of communication. Nonautonomous linguists were suspicious of the lack of concern in TG theory for observation and for empirical testing of central assumptions about the mental, neurological and sociocultural preconditions which would be necessary for a language such as that envisioned in Chomsky's writings. Neurolinguists, for example, found little concrete evidence that specifically linguistic processes were isolated and separated from other types of communicative processes by an autonomous language organ in the brain (cf. Whitaker 1971; Dingwall 1978); the logical consistency of the theory, they argued, was purchased at the price of neurological accuracy. They concluded the theory lacked an adequate experimental basis (cf. Whitaker 1971; Dingwall 1978). Psycholinguists were unable to confirm the psychological reality of key TG notions such as competence, deep syntactic structure, and transformations; ultimately, there was a growing suspicion that it was difficult, if not impossible, to draw valid psychological conclusions on the basis of TG linguistic premises (cf. Fodor & Garrett 1966; Slobin 1971; McCawley 1976). Research in cognitive psychology suggested that the referential view of meaning endorsed by TG theory was too narrow to account for the ability of speakers and listeners to attach affective and conative meanings even to words in isolation (cf. Osgood , Suci & Tannenbaum 1967). Psycholinguists increasingly referred to the psychological naivety of the theory (cf. Bever 1968b; Cowan 1970; Reber 1973; Osgood 1976).

1.3 Linguistic

ideologies

35

In ethno- and sociolinguistics, TG assumptions about the nature of the ideal speaker-listener and the homogeneous speech-community were steadily attacked. Halliday (1971,1978) rejected both the degree and kind of idealization in Chomsky's work as inappropriate for the description of interpersonal language behavior. The notion of performance, he argued, was a sort of conceptual ragbag — a collective irrelevancy category for all the important sociocultural contextual factors not included in the formal theory which would be necessary to account for language as a human phenomenon (cf. Hymes 1971: 55; Halliday 1978: 38). In the eyes of many sociolinguists, the implications of TG theory were asocial if not antisocial; the theory came to be viewed as lacking social accountability (cf. Sarles 1977: 31; Halliday 1978: 3). Interactional linguists pointed out that the separation of linguistic knowledge from linguistic performance divorced the notion of meaning from the only context in which it logically could be said to exist: the situational interpersonal context (cf. Tyler 1978: 136). In addition to ignoring the importance of the speaker-listener relationship in language processes, they said, TG theory lacked any means of accounting for such fundamental features of communicative acts as intentionality, conventionality, motivation, and expectation (cf. Anttila 1975: 293; Gebauer 1980: 455). Social psychologists and others studying face-to-face communication produced findings casting doubt on the extent to which people even perceived 'language' as an autonomous feature of the ebb and flow of verbal, vocal, kinesic, and other interpretable behaviors during speech (cf. Sarles 1977; Poyatos 1983). Research in verbal and nonverbal communication suggested that although it was possible in theory to conceptualize language, prosody, and kinesics as independent semiotic systems, in everyday practice verbal and nonverbal cues operated simultaneously and could be alternated with or substituted for each other as needed in the communicative situation (cf. Scott 1980; Poyatos 1983). Recently, a significant shift of interest has begun to make itself felt in linguistics: from the autonomous perspective introduced by Saussure and pursued to its logical extreme in the works of the taxonomic structuralists and the transformationalists, to a new, somewhat more diffuse perspective characterized less by any apparent consensus about what might constitute its object, methodology, or conceptual framework than by the fervent, in some cases naive, ideological commitment of its proponents to 'saving linguistics as a human science' (cf. Anttila 1975; Yngve 1975a; Pike 1982). Halliday

36

1. The Context of InterGrammar

(1978: 56) calls this a shift from an intraorganism perspective to an interorganism one. Hymes (1971: 55) explains it as a shift from what is constant in grammar to what is said by actual speakers, and from what is innate in human nature to what is social in human linguistic interaction. For Rommetveit (1979b: 66) it is an expansion of linguistic analysis from the sentence in vacuo to the utterance in its interpersonal setting. For Yngve (1975a: 53) it is 'human linguistics'; its goal, he says, is less to achieve a scientific understanding of language than to achieve a scientific understanding of how people communicate. Pike (1983: 129) thinks of it as the linguist's contribution to human understanding: the metaphysical affirmation that the individual person is more basic than the abstract idea. In fact, there are nearly as many views of what 'post-Chomskyan linguistics' might be, concretely, as there are linguists hailing its arrival. The situation could be compared with the blind men in the parable discussing their conclusions about the elephant after touching different parts of it, except that in post-Chomskyan linguistics linguists often seem to be touching different parts of different animals (cf. Yngve 1983:140). Various requirements for an expanded linguistic approach have been proposed: a focus on actual speech as opposed to self-invented sentences (cf. Pride 1971: 99), a return to actual speaker-listeners as the locus of speech and linguistic research (cf. Makkai 1975: 38; Mey 1979: 411), the recognition of linguistic variation as a primary subject of study (cf. Bright 1966: 11; Halliday 1978: 38; Gebauer 1980: 405), more detailed description of the external contextual features of conversational settings (cf. Halliday 1971: 166; Rommetveit 1979b: 66), closer analysis of the social constraints on language behavior in different speech communities and interpersonal situations (cf. Gumperz & Hymes 1972: 435 — 436; Fishman 1972: 3), the addition of concepts of linguistic appropriacy to theoretical frameworks to complement traditional notions of grammatical correctness (cf. Lyons 1977: 173), the inclusion of concepts referring to speakers' attitudes, emotions, assumptions, and expectations in linguistic models (cf. Colby 1966: 3; Moore & Carling 1982: 163), the inclusion of the notion of intentionality in linguistic models as an important determinant of speech variation (cf. Anttila 1975: 292; Rommetveit 1979b: 54), the development of a semantic theory capable of describing ranges of probable interpretive choice within frameworks of possible interpretive variation (cf. Hymes 1967), the integration of language, paralanguage, and kinesics within a single concep-

1.3 Linguistic ideologies

37

tual framework as functionally cohesive systems (cf. Poyatos 1983: 132), and so on. Despite the obvious interest in broadening the scope of linguistics signaled by such proposals, there remains an urgent need for integrative theories in post-Chomskyan linguistics. More than ten years ago, Yngve (1975a: 47) pointed out the lack of an appropriate conceptual framework for linguists and communication researchers interested in problems of face-to-face interaction. Today, research continues in the absence of any apparent consensus about what might constitute a theoretically or methodologically adequate account of the subject. Lacking shared basic assumptions about the object of study, a shared methodology, and a unified conceptual system guiding their efforts, linguists in the post-Chomsky era have produced a great number of interesting, possibly useful, but unintegrated findings (cf. Bradac, Bowers & Courtright 1979: 257). A difficulty with much current research is that its ideological conviction often disguises a lack of metatheoretical sophistication. Halliday (1978: 37), for example, points out the confusion in Gumperz & Hymes' (1972: vii) attempt to define the ethnography of speaking as the study of 'communicative competence.' While the approach essentially centers around the description of language as sociocultural behavior, it does so from a position firmly rooted in the Chomskyan notion of language as knowledge. This is to say, Gumperz and Hymes tacitly adopt what Halliday calls an intraorganism perspective on what are basically interorganism questions. Similar contradictions exist in the writings of ethnomethodologists such as Garfinkel (1967) and Sacks (1972) who, although they are concerned with the ways people negotiate intersubjective understanding in everyday conversation (cf. Garfinkel 1972: 309), adopt the assumption that this can be explained in terms of the individual 'epistemological competencies' of single interactants (cf. Garfinkel 1972: 304-305). Garfinkel's early studies of disruptions in the predictable order of conversational events encouraged a number of interesting attempts to formulate systems of invariable rules and supplementary variable rules for conversational sequencing (cf. Labov 1972a; Schegloff 1972; Sacks 1973, 1974; Cicourel 1977; Crawford 1977). Probabilistically weighted rule systems for incorporating speech variation into grammatical description were developed (cf. Klein 1974; Klein & Dittmar 1979; Senft 1982). Yet it is questionable whether models combining variable and invariable rules are flexible enough to account adequately for the complexity of actual speech

38

1. The Context of InterGrammar

in situations other than those in which speakers behave almost automatically (e.g., conversational openings and closings, speech rituals, turn-taking sequences). As we said, it lies in the nature of all rule systems — even the variable or probabilistic ones — to be static, and in the nature of human interaction to be dynamic and reflexive. It is thus unlikely that formal rule systems of the traditional kind will ever be developed that account adequately for conversational interaction without making concessions either at the expense of internal self-consistency or at the expense of oversimplifying the complexity of human communicative behavior. Attempts to tailor explanations of actual face-to-face speech after models developed to explain autonomous language structures involve metascientific contradictions. Rommetveit (1979c) discusses instances in which mentalistic assumptions borrowed from generative semantics even infiltrate the theoretical foundations of Searle's (1969) speech act theory, Labov's (1972a) notions of production, interpretation, and sequencing rules, and Habermas's (1970a, 1970b) prerequisites for 'pure intersubjectivity.' The ideological standpoint of post-Chomskyan linguistics is clear. Its proponents reject what they view as the excessive idealization of the TG approach, maintaining that if linguistics is to be 'saved' as a human science, it will have to accept a lower level of formalization and begin focusing on language and communication as things people do (cf. Makkai 1975: 38; Anttila 1975: 292; Halliday 1978: 38). This, they feel, entails recognizing that language behavior, like other forms of human behavior, is neither anarchic nor fully predetermined (cf. Tyler 1978: 135). Thus, instead of rejecting whatever is messy in human communication, Halliday (1978: 38), Pike (1982: 135-136), Yngve (1983: 142 — 143), and other advocates of a broader linguistic approach say we must accept the mess and attempt to integrate it into our conceptual frameworks. Empirical research on ellipses and fragmentary expressions shows that much of the mess, in fact, can be described and analyzed (cf. Meyer-Hermann & Rieser 1985). Nevertheless, the search for appropriate frameworks is still in its infancy. Linguistic assumptions can scarcely be changed on the strength of ideological arguments alone. Linguistic models worthy of attention must be grounded in firm theoretical principles and in an understanding of the metascientific shortcomings of the models they are intended to replace. The failure to progress beyond ideological argumentation and propose well-grounded alternatives to the autonomous frameworks of the past century is one of the weaknesses of current efforts in human linguistics (cf. Rommetveit 1979c: 158).

1.4 Introspection and observation in linguistic theory

39

1.4 Introspection and observation in linguistic theory In the following section, we shall suggest that human communication can best be accounted for by a methodology in which introspection and observation are combined. As Kant (1787: 223) said, if reason and sensory perception are separated, the result is observations without concepts or concepts without observations — in either case, ideas which cannot be related to definite objects: Verstand und Sinnlichkeit können bei uns nur in Verbindung Gegenstände bestimmen. Wenn wir sie trennen, so haben wir Anschauungen ohne Begriffe oder Begriffe ohne Anschauungen, in beiden Fällen aber Vorstellungen, die wir auf keinen bestimmten Gegenstand beziehen können.

To the extent that traditional rationalist and positivist linguistic methodologies have been based tacitly on the presupposition that such a separation is not only possible, but in fact desirable, neither methodology, in its purest form, has proved adequate for the task of accounting for the apparently intuitive ability of humans to communicate successfully (cf. Tyler 1978: 41 ff.). Both radical a priorism and radical a posteriorism have been unproductive as scientific ideologies (cf. Bunge 1973: 2). There is little to gain by insisting that human communication can be accounted for by either introspection or observation alone. The former results in theories of communication which, unsubstantiated by experimental evidence, become progressively immune to experience, while the latter tends to degenerate into the blind collection and systematization of linguistic data as an end in itself (cf. Bunge 1967b: 185 ff.). Around the turn of the century, the German philosopher Dilthey (1910) argued that human beings cannot be reduced to objects of explanation in the sense in which the term is traditionally used in either the logical or empirical sciences. There is no process of deductive or inductive reasoning, he claimed, by which the human scientist can ultimately reduce his subject to anything other than an object of understanding or interpretation: Every word, or sentence, every gesture or form of politeness, every work of art and every historical deed is only understandable because the person expressing himself and the one understanding him are connected through something they have in common. The individual always thinks, experiences and acts as well as understands in this 'common sphere' (cf. Dilthey 3/1961: 146 ff.).

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In Dilthey's view, the search for 'objective' knowledge about human processes is a fallacy — a methodological presupposition borrowed from the nonhuman sciences. What is central to the study of human behavior, he claimed, is neither introspection nor observation but rather interpretation, i.e., the selection of probable explanations of human events from among possible explanations within a particular frame of reference, tradition, or culture (cf. Shotter 1978: 51). It is clear that in order to explain any instance of observed communication the linguist must assert his own assumptions, at some point, in drawing his inferences and stating his conclusions (cf. Wiener et al. 1972: 202). It is also apparent that if the linguist is interested in understanding why — that is, for what reasons — a speaker or listener behaves one way or another in a particular situation, no amount of introspection or observational testing in this or other similar situations can provide the decisive evidence. At the most, as Apel (1972: 17 — 18) points out, introspection and observation can give hints, on the assumption that these can be integrated into the attempt to interpret the behavior in question. Ultimately, however, it is neither introspection nor observation that provides the best test of the linguist's hypotheses, but rather introspectively and observationally substantiated communication with his subjects. For this reason, it would appear advisable to take a moderate position and assume that both introspection and observation are valid — in fact necessary — components of linguistic methodology. Linell (1976: 92-93), Itkonen (1977: 251-252), the present authors (1981b: 96) and others have commented on the necessary complementarity of introspection and observation in nonautonomous linguistics. Natural language behavior is inherently variable, creative and unpredictable (cf. Itkonen 1977: 242ff.; Pike 1982: 135-136); nevertheless, it is possible only because the intuitive knowledge upon which it is based is continuously reaffirmed in everyday conversation by the convergent behavior of real speakers and listeners. Thus, a potentially useful connection might be assumed to exist between the concepts of (intuitively) correct language behavior and (observationally) convergent language behavior. We attempt to demonstrate this in the following pages.

1.4 Introspection and observation in linguistic theory

41

1.4.1 Intuition and observation Everyday conversation is a cooperative activity which depends on the more or less intuitive coordination of a speaker and a listener who together negotiate whatever sense of shared meaning comes out of their interaction (cf. Hare 1957). The problems of everyday speakers, we should wish to suggest, are by no means irrelevant to the methodological concerns of linguists and communication researchers. On the contrary, they illustrate a phenomenon which neither introspective nor observational linguistics is able to account for fully. The traditional problem lies in the flexibility and individuality of everyday speech on the one hand, and its regularity on the other. Speech is unpredictable in individual cases; nevertheless, it is clearly only possible because the assumptions upon which it is based are somehow confirmed by the course of real conversational events. Discovering ways to conceptualize these assumptions and to determine the extent to which these are shared by members of different cultures, societies, speech communities, and so on, have been among the traditional goals in linguistics, semiotics, communication research, cultural anthropology, and other human sciences throughout most of the present century, regardless of the different methods or scientific ideologies subscribed to by individual investigators. If we ask how the everyday speaker approaches conversation, one of the first questions that arises is how the speaker knows, often without being able to say why or how, that he has found the 'right' words, intonations, gestures, etc. and has put these together in the 'right' combinations to express himself intelligibly to his partner (cf. Hare 1957). Surely the speaker's personal judgment in this matter is not in itself proof that he is correct; yet, in fact, he seems to act as if it were. As long as he remains satisfied that he is not doing anything 'wrong', he will continue to act on the basis of this assumption until he either discovers, or is shown, some reason not to. If he suspects he is not being understood, he will either try to explain himself in other words or by some other nonverbal means, or he will stop doing whatever it is that is not being understood. In either case, some form of reasoning will have occurred by which the speaker has tested the validity of his own communicative assumptions by appealing to those of his partner. Whatever it is that enables partners to achieve this sort of coordination (see section 2.5 for a psycholinguistic account of speech perception), although it must be learned, is hardly a product

42

1. The Context of InterGrammar

of introspection. It is not exactly a product of observation either. Rather, it seems to have many of the characteristics of 'memory' — although it seems odd to say we remember how to use a certain word, syntactic structure, speaking style, intonation, or gesture (cf. Hare 1957: 749). In fact, it appears that both the speaker's sense of the rightness of his own communicative choices and his sense of having properly understood his partner's reactions (an inference based on observation) are essentially intuitive judgments. More recently it has become fashionable to explain the intuitive character of this sort of coordination using concepts such as human intersubjectivity and conventionality, which we shall discuss later. Nevertheless, in terms of current linguistic metatheory it is not exactly clear how the existence of the intuitive knowledge which would make such coordination possible could ever be proved observationally. Chomsky (1966, 1976), Apel (1972), Itkonen (1977, 1978, 1981), and other rationalist metatheorists have argued that, insofar as intuitive knowledge can neither be reduced to nor derived from observational data, conceptually valid observational statements about intuitive knowledge are impossible in principle. Yet, if we approach the problem from the point of view of the speaker, it is evident that in cases of doubt he has little choice but to ignore these logical considerations and test his intuitions observationally. In order to make himself intelligible, he must find the right words, intonations, gestures, and so on, and combine these in the right ways. That he can in fact judge verbal and nonverbal cues and combinations to be right or wrong and appropriate or inappropriate in different situations implies that he has some intuitive or assumptive basis for making these inferences. That he is able to communicate at all implies that this assumptive basis must be shared to a certain extent with this partner, for without presupposing a framework of common assumptions about the meanings and uses of verbal and other cues, the speaker could never hope to communicate. But these are ideal prerequisites for communication. In fact, everyday conversation provides many instances in which the speaker's assumptions are contradicted or only partially confirmed: instances, that is, of momentary ambiguity or misunderstanding, where his attempts to make himself intelligible to his partner fail and communication temporarily breaks down. In these situations, the speaker has no alternative but to test the validity of his intuitions. This cannot be done introspectively insofar as the speaker cannot step out of

1.4 Introspection

and observation

in linguistic theory

43

himself, so to speak, and discover where he went wrong by analyzing assumptions he has not made. In the strictest sense, it cannot be done observationally either, for as philosophers and psychologists know, it is impossible for the speaker to gain direct access to the inner workings of his partner's mind and 'observe' the assumptions there (cf. Ekman & Friesen 1968: 186; Apel 1972: 18 ff.; Tyler 1978: 148 ff.). Unknowingly faced by a methodological impasse, the speaker opts for a modified version of the lesser evil: he watches his partner and tries to imagine hypotheses which could explain his behavior. In other words, the speaker interprets his observations. When he thinks he has discovered the point of misunderstanding (i.e., the failure of his intuition), he adopts what he assumes is the appropriate repairing strategy and watches his partner's reaction to see whether his assumption was correct. This brings us to a point of methodological unclarity in much standard linguistic research: namely that linguists, no less than everyday speakers, are forced to rely on intuitive judgments in selecting, describing and explaining instances of what counts for them as correct or incorrect and appropriate or inappropriate communication, and in selecting and judging the data they consider to be relevant evidence for their theories (cf. Saussure 1916: 23). A central issue in linguistics and communication research is thus the unresolved status of intuition in our descriptive procedures and our conceptual frameworks. There is no way to avoid the conclusion, as Chomsky (1965: 21) says, that intuition is the ultimate standard that determines the accuracy and adequacy of our approaches. This is true not only of introspective approaches, which are traditionally believed to be more vulnerable to criticism on this score, but of observational approaches as well, which depend to an equally great extent on intuitively postulated normative frameworks of rules, conventional behaviors, hierarchies of probabilities, and so on in describing and accounting for patterns of observed language behavior (cf. Itkonen 1980). The difference between the linguist and the everyday speaker is essentially only that whereas the speaker must continually verify the validity of his intuitions and assumptions experientially in order to make himself understandable to his partner, the linguist has been allowed traditionally to postulate the universality of his linguistic knowledge or to ignore the problem of its validity altogether. Whether the linguist models language as knowledge or behavior, thought or action, a formal system or a dynamic process, the ultimate standards

44

7. The Context of InterGrammar

determining the adequacy of both his data base (or corpus) and his explanatory model (or grammar) are essentially intuitive. Here, the linguist distinguishes himself from the everyday speaker rather clearly in assuming his linguistic intuition is infallible, something the speaker can do only up to the moment observation proves otherwise. The problem seems to be that while linguistics and communication research rest on intuition, no truly adequate methodolgy has been formulated in these disciplines for this type of endeavor. As a result, to salvage their methodological self-respect, investigators traditionally have been forced to accept, or at any rate appear to have accepted, the methodologies of the observational-experimental sciences or the introspective-logical sciences. But this, as Itkonen (1981:130) says, requires that although they in fact use intuition, they must adopt methods which suggest they do not. Thus, a paradoxical situation results in which individuals who essentially do little more than analyze their own assumptions and inferences about observed or self-invented sentences, utterances, speech acts, communicative behaviors, and so on, claim to be investigating communicative systems or processes according to the strictest canons of scientific inquiry (cf. Chomsky 1981: 7; Itkonen 1981: 131).

1.4.2 Intersubjectivity and conventionality As we said, one of the fundamental presuppositions of speaking is that when one speaks, one's partner can at least potentially understand what one is attempting to say (cf. Tyler 1978: 41; Rommetveit 1974: 36). Conversation necessarily requires two participants who implicitly share at least a rough sense of what one another's words, intonations, gestures, and so on might potentially 'mean' in any particular context (cf. Sarles 1977: 155). Without the assumption of intersubjectivity speakers and their partners could not achieve semantic or intersocial coordination and therefore could not maintain interaction (cf. Garfinkel 1967, 1972; Arndt & Janney 1979, 1981a). From a pure rationalist viewpoint, in which knowledge of the world is constructed deductively in the mind from underlying innate categories of thought and perception, intersubjectivity is considered to be a universal aspect of what is sometimes referred to as the 'reflexive character of human consciousness' (cf. Chomsky 1966: 3 ff.; Itkonen

1.4 Introspection

and observation

in linguistic theory

45

1976: 42—43, 1977: 249). From a strict positivist viewpoint, in which knowledge of the world is inductively derived from bits and pieces of subjective individual perceptual experience, intersubjectivity is considered to be a more or less incidental by-product of the statistical aggregation of a given group of individuals' subjective responses to the world. This, as Tyler (1978: 149) points out, is what accounts for the rationalist's ambivalence about actual communication and the positivist's dim suspicion that no one ever really communicates with his partner anyway. Whereas the rationalist tends to be hard-pressed to account for how communication ever goes wrong, the positivist has difficulty explaining how it ever occurs to begin with. In fact, neither rationalist nor positivist views take the negotiated character of human intersubjectivity into consideration: that is, the fact that intersubjectivity does not arise spontaneously from either 'mind' or 'experience', but is instead a product of the intentional cooperation of human beings mediated by language and other conventional means of communication. Intersubjectivity is an objective fact neither of semiotic systems per se nor of the individual symbolic acts which may occur in a given situation (cf. Rommetveit 1974: 36 ff.; Tyler 1978: 141 ff.). Rather, it is interpersonally sustained through partners' successive cooperative attempts to approximate and coordinate their respective understandings of what is being meant by the verbal and nonverbal acts they are performing from one moment to the next to express their thoughts, feelings, and intentions to one another. Intersubjectivity is thus a dynamic process mediated by language and other communicative systems, with both intuitive and experiential dimensions, and it can therefore hardly be accounted for adequately from either the pure rationalist or empiricist viewpoints, insofar as neither of these contains any reference to the dynamic role of what philosophers sometimes call 'other minds' in this process. The existence of communicative partners poses fundamental problems for both rationalist and empiricist methodologies. These arise because both approaches conceptualize speakers as isolated egos who can only communicate with one another, if at all, by interacting within some sort of framework of common transcendent conventions (cf. Tyler 1978: 49). In both approaches, other minds have a derivative or secondary existence with respect to the system and sociocultural processes thought to join them. They are treated as either the incidental by-products of cognitive rules (the rationalist position) or statistical regularities (the empiricist position). Conse-

46

1. The Context of InterGrammar

quently, both rationalists and empiricists tend to conceive of intersubjectivity as a derivative of communicative conventions. The strict rationalist view of communicative conventions could be summarized by Itkonen's (1976: 41 ff.) comments on the difference between language rules and grammatical rules. The former are said to be normative or conventional insofar as they belong to the common knowledge of the speech community. Examples of conventional linguistic knowledge of this sort would be the speaker's knowledge that a definite article comes before the substantive and not after, that the word 'boy' refers to a human and not a number, that 'Hi, Jane' is a more appropriate greeting to a close friend than 'Good evening, Mrs. Marshall,' and so on. Grammatical rules, on the other hand, cannot be known in this sense, Itkonen says, because they are not normative but hypothetical. That is, grammatical rules are hypotheses about how language rules ought to be written. The transformational rules of TG grammars would be hypotheses of this sort (cf. Janney 1981). On the basis of this distinction rationalists define conventional language rules as pretheoretical or trivial, i.e., self-evident, as opposed to grammatical rules, which are theoretical and nontrivial. In fact conventional language rules must be trivial, according to the syllogistic rationalist argument, otherwise they could not be part of the common knowledge of the speech community. Their conventionality guarantees that violations of them, i.e., incorrect language behavior, will be objectively recognized as such by normal speakers. Linguistic conventionality, in the rationalist view, is thus a product of the normative rules of language (cf. Itkonen 1976: 43). In the pure empiricist view, on the other hand, linguistic conventionality is a product of observed verbal behavioral regularities. Bennett (1976: 177) defines a linguistic convention as a verbal behavioral regularity which the members of a group maintain "because they mutually know that they have maintained it in the past and that it has solved for them a recurring kind of coordination problem." In this view conventionality is not a normative phenomenon but an experiential one. That is, it is based not on 'rules' in the rationalist sense but rather on common experience, perceived regularities in verbal behavior, memories of past perceived verbal regularities, and expectations regarding probable future verbal regularities (cf. Lewis 1969: 52 — 60; Itkonen 1976: 43). The empiricist view of linguistic conventions is thus that they are firmly rooted in observable spatiotemporal experience, and that, as such, they can be described as more

1.4 Introspection

and observation

in linguistic theory

47

or less statistical consequences of the individual speakers' observations of one another's verbal behavior and their hypotheses about this behavior — formed and tested on a small scale somewhat like those of the empirical scientist — in a given speech community. It is sometimes argued that communicative conventions are established and maintained on the expectation that others will conform to them (cf. Griffin & Mehan 1981: 199). Such a statement, which contains elements of both rationalist and empiricist perspectives, is misleading in two ways and serves, in turn, to illustrate the central problems of each. First, communicative conventions may hardly be said to be 'established' in the same sense that rules are said to be established. Such a notion leads to the conclusion that they have an existence independent of the communicative acts which manifest them, while in fact the establishment and maintenance of communicative conventions is an ongoing process. They would not exist if individual speakers did not recreate and confirm them through intentional acts on an everyday basis (cf. Itkonen 1977: 249). This is to say communicative conventions are not established, but rather emerge out of the individual verbal and nonverbal contacts among members of a speech community and are thus not static but dynamic entities. This accounts for their tendency to shift and change over time and space — a characteristic of communicative conventions which rationalist linguists and semiologists are able to circumvent only by banishing the notions of time and space from their theories. Second, although communicative conventions are experientially related to normative expectations about probable verbal and nonverbal behaviors, no amount of observational evidence can explain why the failure to conform to them does not automatically in all instances result in semantic or intersocial confusion. Elsewhere, the authors have pointed out ways in which speakers frequently diverge from the conventional verbal and nonverbal expectations of their partners quite intentionally in order to express their interpersonal attitudes and intentions (cf. Arndt & Janney 1980, 1981a). In such instances, failure to conform to communicative conventions is not 'deviant' behavior but functionally grounded and, more importantly, semantically interpretable communicative action (cf. Giles & Powesland 1975: 90 ff.). In fact, studies indicate that a certain degree of divergence is not only tolerable in everyday communication but necessary, especially for the development of interpersonal relationships (cf. Berger & Calabrese 1975; Berger 1979). The empiricist notion that

48

1. The Context of InterGrammar

communicative conventions are necessary behavioral regularities is thus useful up to a point. While it accounts for people's ability to achieve coordination, it does not explain how they are able to diverge intentionally from their partners' conventional expectations — i. e., act irregularly — and assume that their divergence will be interpreted as meaningful communicative activity. The point we are stressing is simply that dynamic concepts such as intersubjectivity and conventionality cannot be incorporated into static conceptual frameworks, whether rationalistic or empirical, without arbitrarily denying their roots in human interaction. As we said, neither the pure rationalist nor empiricist view of communication accounts adequately for the fact that people's knowledge of language and other communicative systems has both intuitive and experiential dimensions. Intersubjectivity could not exist if speakers did not assume they shared a supporting body of common sociocultural knowledge and certain conventions for expressing and interpreting this knowledge (cf. Allen & Guy 1974: 11 ff.; Moore & Carling 1982: 10). By the same token, communicative conventions could not exist if speakers did not cooperatively assume that by coordinating their communicative actions they could achieve intersubjectivity (cf. Rommetveit 1974: 36). Intersubjectivity, as Tyler (1978: 144) points out, is a presupposition which is subjectively sustained by successful acts of communication. To say that communicative conventions are essential to maintaining the assumption of intersubjectivity, and conversely, that intersubjectivity is essential to the maintenance of communicative conventions, is not to suggest that these concepts are synonymous. Rather, it is to suggest that they may be best understood as subjective assumptions with objective force (cf. Tyler 1978: 145), and to point out the obvious fact that they are causally related and mutually dependent on interactional communicative events. To ignore this in studying human communication is to run the risk of turning our investigation into a purely formal exercise such as those in philosophy, mathematics, and logic on the one hand, or allowing it to degenerate into the senseless collection and classification of unintegratable data on the other. If our goal is to account for how people communicate face-to-face, it would appear that we need a more dynamic conceptual framework than those favored in traditional rationalist and positivist approaches (cf. Rauche 1986: 14 ff.).

2. Choice and Constraint in Linguistic Theory

More than a decade ago, Halliday (1973: 51 ff.) proposed that we stop defining language and other communicative systems as autonomous relational structures governed by rules, and adopt the less formalistic view that they are essentially frameworks of potential communicative options regulated by social and cultural conventions. According to Halliday, if communicative systems are conceptualized as frames of potential action, and communicative acts are conceptualized as realizations of the potential options within these, this enables us to view both concepts within a single perspective in which communicative acts (what speakers actually do or do not do) are related to communicative systems (what they potentially can or cannot do) through the intermediary notion of communicative choices (what they decide or decide not to do). In recent years, Halliday and his followers have focused mainly on developing the systemic implications of this idea (cf. Berry 1975; Halliday 1978; Fawcett 1980, 1983). The implications of this view of language behavior, however, have remained relatively undiscussed. From an interactional perspective, the interesting aspect of Halliday's work is less his emphasis on the centrality of culture and society in communicative processes — which has a long tradition in Britain, America, and elsewhere (cf. Arndt & Janney 1979 b) — than the new stress he seems to place on the individual speaker as a decision-making being. Halliday is one of the few modern linguists who implicitly aligns himself with the view that everyday speech is the act of a willful ego constrained by the necessity of communicating with other members of his group (cf. Itkonen 1975: 430; Tyler 1978:135; Gebauer 1980: 405). Together with Pike (1982:136), he is one of the few who recognizes and, perhaps more importantly, tolerates, the inevitable indeterminacy which the concept of individual choice introduces into his conceptual framework. Speaking, to reformulate his notion in interactional terms, is a decisionmaking process in which one chooses those types of communicative options most likely to serve one's purposes (a hypothesis) from among the repertoire of conventional alternatives potentially available (an assumption) in the immediate situation (a perception).

50

2. Choice and Constraint

in Linguistic

Theory

The addition of the notion of individual choice to the sociocultural communication paradigm represents an important departure from standard thinking throughout most of this century. Until now, linguists, semiologists and communication researchers generally have taken the notion of choice for granted, or simply idealized it out of their conceptual models. In the introspective approaches of Chomsky (1965), Eco (1972), Birdwhistell (1978) and others, the individual has been viewed as more or less irrelevant. In the empirical approaches of investigators such as Bernstein (1971), Labov (1972 b), Ekman & Friesen (1974) and von Raffler-Engel (1980 a), the individual has been viewed implicitly as a sort of social automaton at the mercy of socially prescribed rules and norms (cf. Giles 1977; Berger 1979). Halliday's theory, if not always his practice, suggests the dual importance of culturally patterned experiences and individual cognitiveemotional processes (cf. Cicourel 1977: 22). A view of speech as intentional action within conventional constraints provides impetus to a reinterpretation of many traditional notions about language and communication in sociopsychological terms (cf. Giles & Powesland 1975; Giles & St. Clair 1979; St. Clair & Giles 1980; Arndt & Janney 1980, 1981 a, 1983). The locus of communicative behavior in this reinterpretation is neither the group as an arbiter of communicative conventions, nor the individual as a producer of communicative variation, but the individual within the group as a conscious creator of conventional communicative variation (cf. Arndt & Janney 1981 a, 1983). Recent years have witnessed numerous attempts in linguistics and elsewhere to deal with the implications of communicative variation. It has long been maintained that speaking is a structured activity which can be described with properly constructed models (cf. Hymes 1973; Bennett 1976). Conceptual frameworks claiming to reconcile notions of choice and constraint have appeared in sociolinguistics, ethnomethodology, and semiotics (cf. Ervin-Tripp 1971; Blom & Gumperz 1972; Labov 1972 a; Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson 1974; Baumann & Sherzer 1975; Poyatos 1980). Yet no truly adequate schema has emerged that accounts for how people make or interpret actual choices on an everyday basis. Taxonomies of social constraints on communicative choices, such as sex, education, socio-economic status, group membership and so on, remain too general to be of much use in explaining actual choices in context (cf. Hymes 1973; Poyatos 1980; Mathiot 1983 a). Systems of variable rules, such as rules of alternation, co-occurrence, sequence, etc. have proved too

2.1 Abductive

reasoning

51

rigid, as we pointed out, to account for anything but relatively simple, repetitive situations in which people behave almost automatically (cf. Labov 1972 a; Schegloff 1972; Ervin-Tripp 1971; Sacks 1972). If we wish to reconcile notions of choice and constraint in communication theory, what appears to be necessary is not a taxonomy or a rule system describing constraints in vacuo, but some means of interpreting communicative choices and constraints in relation to one another. It would appear that present approaches focus on only half of this important problem. There remains a need for practical frameworks accounting for what Lenk (1980) calls Entscheidungslogik, or the logic of communicative decisions, in which both the social constraints on speaking and the speaker's freedom of choice within these constraints are clear. Such a schema will necessarily have to differ from schemata which have been devised solely to describe communicative constraints. As Pike (1982: 136) points out, if we want our schema to handle human flexibility and human choice, we must allow it to have some indeterminacy at the moment we apply it; that is, it must be capable of accounting for many types of variation, after they occur, without being required to predict in advance which types must inevitably occur. Such an assumption seems necessary if we intend to treat the notion of choice as an integral dimension of human communication.

2.1 Abductive reasoning Peircean abductive reasoning appears to present one means of reconciling notions of choice and constraint in communicative decisions. Around the turn of the century, the notion of reflexive reasoning became a preoccupation of Peirce's (1931); later, it influenced Russell's (1948) writings on human knowledge and Wittgenstein's (3/ 1968) writings on language games. Peirce came to the idea as he was analyzing arguments based on traditional syllogistic progressions such as the following: major premise e. g., 'abnormal people are unpredictable' minor premise e. g., 'this man is abnormal' conclusion e. g., 'this man is unpredictable'

52

2. Choice and Constraint in Linguistic

Theory

The possible paths of reasoning in such syllogisms, he pointed out, include not only the traditional downward deductive path and the upward inductive path, but also a third path which he labeled variously 'hypothetical', 'presumptive', 'retroductive', or 'abductive' reasoning (see Figure 4). deduction

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abduction (assuming)

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1

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1

(then)

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For Peirce, abduction was not analytical reasoning in the deductive sense; and although it somewhat resembled the synthetic reasoning of induction, it was not exactly inductive either (cf. Collected Papers 5, §171): Deduction proves that something must be; induction shows that something actually is operative; abduction merely suggests that something may be.

In Peircean logic, the assumptive basis of abductive conclusions is neither a priori, as in deduction, nor observational, as in induction, but rather both simultaneously, i. e., the reflexive interaction between these (cf. Ronal in Chomsky 1979: 71). Peirce (cf. Collected Papers 2, § 773) defined reasoning as a process in which the reasoner is conscious that a judgment (e. g., a decision, conclusion, hypothesis, etc.) is determined by another judgment or judgments (e. g., premises, presuppositions, assumptions, etc.) according to general habits of thought which he may not be able to formulate, but which he trusts implicitly as conducive to understanding or appropriate action. For Peirce, reasoning does not begin until some judgment has already been formed which, being more or less subconscious, is neither controllable nor subject to logical approval or disapproval. In Peirce's writings, conclusions, decisions, explanatory hypotheses, and so on are rooted in assumptions. Peirce thought of abductive reasoning as everyday logic par excellence. It is the basis on which people reach conclusions about the meanings, reasons, causes, and probable results of events perceived and projected in their everyday experience. Moreover, it is the only kind of reasoning, he claimed, which supplies new ideas (see Figure 5).

2.1 Abductive reasoning

53

Frameworks of subconscious premises, assumptions, presuppositions, etc.

Conclusions, decisions, inferences, hypotheses, etc.

Perceptions or projections of events in what the individual designates as the 'rear world Figure 5. Abductive reasoning

An individual, upon perceiving a phenomenon which seems significant in the immediate situation, looks over its features and notices characteristics or interrelationships among these which he intuitively recognizes as being typical of certain assumptions already stored in his mind, so that a conclusion is suggested which appears to account for (or render necessary) that which is significant in the phenomenon, or a course of action is suggested which appears to be appropriate under the circumstances (cf. Collected Papers 2, §776). He temporarily places this conclusion higher on the list of potential conclusions than others which, although perhaps also possible, seem less 'reasonable' given his assumptions, and he acts accordingly. Peirce was well aware of the difficulty of elevating abduction to the level of deduction and induction as a third type of reasoning. He anticipated the charge that what he was offering was little more than a methodological justification for educated guessing. If the conclusions of abduction are only probabilities, he said, then it must be asked why it is even necessary to refer to them as products of logic; after all, are they not simply hunches, in which case one would be free to examine whatever conclusions one liked? Peirce's solution was to imply that all naturally occurring hypotheses are intuitive in the beginning. The fact that investigators are able to confirm them as often as they do by no means alters their intuitive character. On the contrary, he argued, it only underscores the importance of intuitive judgments in all forms of human reasoning (cf. Collected Papers 2, § 776): ... it is a question of economy. If [the investigator] examines all the foolish [hypotheses] he might imagine, he never will (short of a miracle) light upon the true one. Indeed, even with the most rational procedure, he never would do so, were there not an

54

2. Choice and Constraint in Linguistic

Theory

affinity between his ideas and nature's ways. However, if there be any attainable truth, as he hopes, it is plain that the only way in which it is to be attained is by trying the hypotheses which would seem reasonable and which lead to such consequences as are observed.

A point which fascinated Peirce, Bertrand Russell (1948), and later Chomsky (1979), was the apparent capacity of human beings to imagine correct hypotheses. Why should it be, he asked, in the face of the innumerable possible explanations for events — most of which by necessity must be wrong — that human beings tend to choose correct hypotheses as often as they do? Surely the odds against doing this are tremendous. The answer implicit in his various writings on the subject is that one's subconscious assumptions about the nature of reality limit the number of possible hypotheses one can choose from to a range of potentially imaginable ones, and that this range is further narrowed by what one perceives in any instance to a smaller range of 'probable' choices. Thus, in Peirce's view, probable hypotheses are selected abductively from among possible hypotheses on the basis of assumptions and immediate perceptions. The result, although it is little more than an inference or an interpretation of reality, is experienced directly as a sense of understanding the relationships between events in the world (cf. Eco 1984: 39 ff.). Peirce ( ed

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