Agenda 22 Oct 2008

LSP Ch 8: language and class

IDC Paulston, Pronouns…Swedish

IDC Sifianou, Off-record indirectness

Chapter 8: language and class

• 134: “all speakers have both an accent and a dialect”

• 136: “Because we associate features of speech with particular social groups, we also expect members of those groups to behave in linguistically appropriate ways”

Learning prestige varieties

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gA7qq7Ja4U

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kBNr3djnZM

Social information from accent and dialect

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk7hFnB4JnA

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lich59xsjik

When's the Last Time You Heard an Old Person Say "Dadburn It"?

• An old Bugs Bunny cartoon of 1944, THE OLD GREY HARE, depicts Bugs and Elmer Fudd as old men going through their usual antics with canes, gray beards, spectacles and the shakes. But these aren't the only traits indicating their having reached their twilight years. Bugs, as an oldster, talks in a hillbilly accent.

• But Bugs Bunny as a young "man" spoke in a Brooklyn/Bronx patois. Why would he have shifted into an alien moonshine dialect as he got older?

• This was no random occurrence chez the Looney Tunes crew. One sees this kind of thing again and again in pop culture of that era. Old people are very often depicted as talking like the Beverly Hillbillies even when the people around them use mainstream standard American. LL 5/20/04

More links: social information

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xKAEQNhjHs

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpKhWePGNPc

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH9oFbXAvJI&feature=related

Dickens: Magwich, ch 1 of Great Expectations •

"You bring me, to-morrow morning early, that file and them wittles. You bring the lot to me, at that old Battery over yonder. You do it, and you never dare to say a word or dare to make a sign concerning your having seen such a person as me, or any person sumever, and you shall be let to live. You fail, or you go from my words in any partickler, no matter how small it is, and your heart and your liver shall be tore out, roasted and ate. Now, I ain't alone, as you may think I am. There's a young man hid with me, in comparison with which young man I am a Angel. That young man hears the words I speak. That young man has a secret way pecooliar to himself, of getting at a boy, and at his heart, and at his liver. It is in wain for a boy to attempt to hide himself from that young man. A boy may lock his door, may be warm in bed, may tuck himself up, may draw the clothes over his head, may think himself comfortable and safe, but that young man will softly creep and creep his way to him and tear him open. I am a-keeping that young man from harming of you at the present moment, with great difficulty. I find it wery hard to hold that young man off of your inside. Now, what do you say?"

Faulkner: Sound and the Fury• "He want to go out doors." Versh said.

     "Let him go." Uncle Maury said.      "It's too cold." Mother said. "He'd better stay in. Benjamin. Stop that, now."      "It wont hurt him." Uncle Maury said.      "You, Benjamin." Mother said. "If vou dont be good, you'll have to go to the kitchen."      "Mammy say keep him out the kitchen today." Versh said. "She say she got all that cooking to get done."      "Let him go, Caroline." Uncle Maury said. "You'll worry yourself sick over him."      "I know it." Mother said. "It's a judgment on me. I sometimes wonder."  

Morrison, Beloved

• "Was it hard? I hope she didn't die hard."• Sethe shook her head. "Soft as cream. Being alive was the hard

part. Sorry you missed her though. Is that what you came by for?"

• "That's some of what I came for. The rest is you. But if all the truth be known, I go anywhere these days. Anywhere they let me sit down."

• "You looking good."• "Devil's confusion. He lets me look good long as I feel bad." He

looked at her and the word "bad" took on another meaning.• Sethe smiled. This is the way they were--had been. All of the

Sweet Home men, before and after Halle, treated her to a mild brotherly flirtation, so subtle you had to scratch for it.

Paulston/How to address somebody

• What I am called in different countries• What ‘tutoyer’ signals• Who can say what to whom?• On the job – on the phone –• History in English of pronouns

• Singular dual plural• Quaker retention of thee

Sifianou: off-record

• Are you going to wear that black dress?• I’ll change it

• Are you making coffee?• Certainly not

• The notion of imposition: what is one?

Stylistic usage of pragmatic markers and habituated pauses

Performative functions retained by older and oldest-old speakers

Boyd Davis, UNCC Margaret Maclagan, Canterbury

Research assistants

• Sara Blackmore

Background

• Pragmatic markers are locally contextualized

• We focus on So • syntactic item • pragmatic marker

Presentation

• Analysis of pragmatic marker So and pauses in narratives

• Analysis of 2 conversational interviews• CEP US African American male 85+• MH New Zealander female 78

Global background

• So as a Pragmatic marker• Harder to spot than as syntactic item

• Turn transition (Schiffrin, 1984)

• Continuation (Lenk, 1998)

• Marker of Connection (Howe, 1991)

Global background

• So shows other-engagement, other- attentiveness (Bolden, 2005)

• Chinese learners of English overuse So• usage differences in written and spoken

• hard to distinguish pragmatic from syntactic (Annping,

2002)

Global background

• Swedish Sa• sentence-internal adverbial sa

• installs a new discourse unit within an ongoing discourse structure;

• syntactically independent or conjunctive sa, • a connective that also closes a discourse unit by

introducing a summation, comment, or reformulation;

• interjectional sa,• concludes a discourse activity by commenting on it and

opens possibilities for new conversational initiatives.(Ottesio, & Lindstrom, 2005)

So-prefaced statements

• In seminars – questions or signal reformulations (Waring 2002)So, do you agree with that emphasis, Mr Washburn?

• In police interviews – marks topic boundaries and organizes narrative

(Johnson 2003) So, you were at the restaurant on Tuesday but not on

Thursday, Mr Washburn. • Initiate concluding summaries

(Byron and Heeman 1997)

Local usage

We found 5 uses of So in the narratives we examined

Local usage – Narrator – 1

• Initiates new discourse unit within on-going discourse structure• includes resumptive or answer to question

So when I got to be 15 or 16 years old …

• may provide counterpoint and introduce new complication

So my grandmother she was a midwife …(Ottesio, & Lindstrom, 2005)

Local usage – Narrator – 2

• Closes discourse unit with a summary

• may initiate coda or evaluation sequence

So a lot of things he said is what he wanted

(Ottesio, & Lindstrom, 2005)

Local usage – Narrator – 3

• Both summarizes what has gone before and looks to the continuation• often has the meaning of therefore• is resultative in meaning (Schiffrin, 1987)

• looks forward as well as back we must buy some fireworks for . and so each ah

shopping day . we’d get a little bag …… in the camp so I stayed there 4 years …

(Davis 05)

Local usage – Narrator – 4

• Syntactic token/Non-pragmatic marker• can be conjunctive – therefore

More acres of land than you could farm so the women just went at it getting babies

• adverbial modifier – so good• particle – think so

Local Usage - Interviewer

• Summarizes and includes inferences• may be from shared worlds

And so they were the main days you did [things]?

(Davis 05)

Local Usage

All these roles for So can be used• In monolog

• In dialog

• By narrator

• By interviewer

Methodology

• 2 conversational interviews• CEP African American

male 85+ 40 minutes• MH New Zealander

female 78 20 minutes

Both were asked questions about their life

Methodology

• CEP recorded in analog, remastered to digital

• MH recorded in digital• Transcribed in Transcriber• Analyzed in Praat

Narratives

Narratives explain to people• who they are • why they experience a particular social

condition • what are the relationships of social

solidarity and opposition in which they are situated (Kane 2000)

CEP’s narratives

• Stories of racism in 20th C America• His successful efforts to outwit ‘the

master’• Interviewer female Black University

professor

CEP’S story worlds

CEP’s pragmatic markers

• CEP’s pragmatic markers bookend short narratives to strengthen affiliation of listener to teller

So, it remind me ..[story].. and, ah, he done some of that same stuff

• Pragmatic markers usually accompanied by pauses, usually long

CEP’s pauses

• So as pragmatic marker always accompanied by a pause• 20 pauses under 1 second• 30 pauses over 1 second• Some as long as 3 seconds

CEP So

• CEP uses So to• Initiate new discourse unit within on-going

discourse structure• Close discourse unit with a summary • Both summarize what has gone before and

look to the continuation• As a syntactic token/Non-pragmatic marker

CEP

CEP: - well, you know how that work. - Lot of time my Uncle Sam went to these different -sharecroppers’ house and told ‘em things that the boss hadn’t said, so that made him -- they looked to him for - the word from the the the old master. RG: mmhmm CEP: so a lot of things he said - is what he wanted, not what the old master cause the old master had got senile. - So, - it remind me of this late movie I saw called -- Color Purple

MH

• Stories of early life in NZ• Family was poor but honorable• Interviewer female University

researcher• Both MH and interviewer white

MH pragmatic markers

• MH uses So to• Both summarize what has gone before and look to

the continuation• As a syntactic token/Non-pragmatic marker

• Narrator uses So to• Initiate new discourse unit within on-going

discourse structure• Summarize and include inferences

• Fewer So than for CEP

So usage for both speakers

CEP MH

Type CEP Int MH

1 19 4

2 6

3 11 4

4 14 4

5 1

Total 50 5 8

MH pauses

• MH uses micropauses to structure narratives• < 0.5 seconds

• With one or more long utterances per narrative• Bounded by longer pauses

MH and a a man that . knew Dad . he was coming up in the dray and he said oh lady would you like to get in the dray and . put the little one in the dray ‘cause I was spitting blood and ah . ah we got a ride up in the dray to Templeton . and then we got out and o’course we had two miles more to walk . and the ah and then on the railway with the jigger they said come and have a ride lady come on put the kid on the . jigger . and they they . rode the jigger . up to our road gate . and we got out and Dad was coming out on the horse and gig he wondered where Mum had got to . and he was coming out to look for her .

Constructed/reported speech

• Used by both CEP and MH• Marker of ‘tellability’ (Labov

2006)

Conclusions

• CEP and MH both use pragmatic markers + pauses to• Structure their narratives• Increase tellability• Indicate most important points

Conclusions

• Speakers differ in• Nationality• National variety of English• Gender• Social class

• But display similar pragmatic uses

Conclusions

• It will be interesting to investigate if• Other varieties of English use pragmatic

markers + pauses in similar ways• Other cousin languages use pragmatic

markers + pauses in similar ways