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Date: 2015-10-07; view: 400.

Chapter 9 Discourse and culture

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jack bilmes: Discourse and Behavior. Plenum Press 1986, page 166

Consider the following exchange:

A [addressing B]: Where are you going?

B [no response]

A The hell with you.

This exchange makes sense. It is orderly, not random. We may characterize B's (non)response with an infinite variety of neg­atives. It is not a question, not a promise, not a lecture, and so forth. However, given that questions call for answers, it is relev­antly not an answer.

> Why do you think the word 'relevantly' is emphasized in this text? Does this mean that every '{non)response' counts as relevantly not something in conversation?

t> Consider what speaker A says in reaction to the '(non)response'. What kind of speech act is this? Does this utterance tell us anything about the relationship between the two speakers (i.e. strangers, acquaintances, or intimates)?

JOHN GUMPERZ and JENNY COOK-GUMPERZ:

'Introduction: language and the communication of social identity' in J. Gumperz (ed.): Language and Social Identity. Cambridge University Press 1982, page 12

Although the pragmatic conditions of communicative tasks are theoretically taken to be universal, the realizations of these tasks as social practices are culturally variable. This variation can be analyzed from several different perspectives, all of which of course co-occur in the actual practices.

(1) Different cultural assumptions about the situation and
about appropriate behavior and intentions within it.

(2) Different ways of structuring information or an argument
in a conversation.

(3) Different ways of speaking: the use of a different set of
unconscious linguistic conventions (such as tone of voice)
to emphasize, to signal local connections and to indicate
the significance of what is being said in terms of overall
meaning and attitudes.

By 'different cultural assumptions' we refer to the fact that, even though people in situations such as we study agree on the overall purpose of the interaction, there are often radical differences as to what expectations and rights are involved at any one time.

[> There is a suggestion here that 'pragmatic conditions' can be treated as 'universal' (i.e. applicable everywhere). Can you suggest some examples of pragmatic universals? How about 'Be polite'? Any others?

[> Can you think of any examples that would support the idea that 'appropriate behavior' differs in different cultures (prag­matically speaking)?

I> Do you agree with these authors that there are different ways of 'structuring an argument'? How is an argument structured in English? How could it be structured any other way?

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