UNIVERZA V LJUBLJANI FAKULTETA ZA DRUŽBENE VEDE MARTA STOJIĆ THE ERASED OF SLOVENIA AS A DISCURSIVE PHENOMENON: A PRAGMATIC APPROACH IZBRISANI V SLOVENIJI KOT DISKURZIVNI FENOMEN: PRISTOP LINGVISTIČNEGA PRAGMATIZMA MAGISTRSKO DELO LJUBLJANA 2009 1 UNIVERZA V LJUBLJANI FAKULTETA ZA DRUŽBENE VEDE MARTA STOJIĆ IZBRISANI V SLOVENIJI KOT DISKURZIVNI FENOMEN: PRISTOP LINGVISTIČNEGA PRAGMATIZMA MAGISTRSKO DELO Mentorica: doc. dr. Karmen Šterk Somentor: doc. dr. Andrej Kurnik LJUBLJANA 2009 2 Contents Abstract 1 Abstract in Slovenian 1 Introduction 2 1. Assessing the phenomenon of the erased 8 1.1. Distinguishing the erased from other legal and administrative categories of people in Slovenia with the outline of the consequences of the erasure for the affected people 9 1.2. The material 12 1.3. The method 17 1.3.1. Written versus oral communication 18 1.3.2. Turn-taking 19 1.4. Senders and receivers of messages 24 2. Language 29 2.1. Language as communication 33 2.2. Linguistic sign and related phenomena 34 2.2.1. First and second articulation, phonemes 36 2.2.2. Substitution and comparison 37 2.3. Subcategories of a linguistic sign 39 3. Discourse, utterance, meaning 42 3.1. Discourse, utterance, meaning and pragmatics 42 3.1.2. Discourse 44 3.1.3. Utterance 47 3.1.4. Meaning 52 3.2. Deixis 61 3.3. Presupposition 69 3.4. Implicature 80 3.4.1. Metaphorical concept 92 3.5. Speech acts 96 3 4. Metaphor 103 Conclusions 109 References 115 Sources 123 Povzetek magistrske naloge v slovenščini 126 4 The Erased of Slovenia as a discursive phenomenon: a pragmatic approach Abstract: When the discourse about the erased is taken as the originating point of the research (that is, an abstraction made of particularized utterances and communicative events), overtly stated, presupposed and implied notions about the erased in individual utterances and communicative events become designations of (they point to) the phrase in the discourse. Further, extensional properties of expressions in separate utterances give their way to the intensional ones. This implies that sense of expressions prevail over their referents. Thus ‘the erased’ in the discourse ceases to signify some set of entities in the world, but primarily signifies a set of senses, which concerns interlexical and intralingual relations. Therefore, in the discursive aspect of the phenomenon’s appearance, we actually deal with the Saussurean sign, comprised of signifiant (‘the erased’) and signifié, where the latter is understood as a concept, sense, intension, and not as an (available or unavailable) object, referent, extension, we deal with a notion totally internal to the language-system, with something that doesn’t have to be, to paraphrase Barthes. Key words: the erased, discourse, utterance, meaning, pragmatics Abstract in Slovenian: Ko se diskurz o izbrisanih vzame kot ishodišče raziskovanja (oz. ena abstrackija narejena iz posameznih izjav in komunikacijskih dogotkov), direktno izrečeni, predpostavljeni in implicirani pogledi o izbrisanih, postanejo designacije (ukazujejo na) frazo v diskurzu. Nadalje, ekstenzionalne karakteristike izrečenega v posamičnimi izjavami vstopaju mesto intenzionalnim. To implicira, da smisel izrečenega prevladuje reference. Tako ‘izbrisani’ v diskurzu neha označevati nekakšen niz entitet v svetu, temveč primarno označuje niz smislov, kateri se nanaša na medbesedne in vnutar-jezikovne odnose. Na ta način se v diskurzivnem aspektu obstoja tega fenomena pravzaprav ukvarjamo s Saussurjevim znakom, sestavljenim iz označevalca (‘izbrisani’) in označenca, pri čem je ta drugi razumet kot koncept, smisel, intenzija, in ne kot (dostopen ali nedostopen) objekt, referenca, ekstenzija, ukvarjamo se z idejo totalno notranjo jeziku-sistemu, z nečem, katerega lahko ni, da parafraziram Barthesa. 5 Ključne besede: izbrisani, diskurz, izjava, pomen, pragmatika Introduction Only few Slovenian social researchers have focused on the problem of the erased of Slovenia for the past few years, while this issue has been present almost on regular basis in the political, legal and activist’s sphere.1 Therefore it is not surprising that only two publications, solely dedicated to the erased, have ever been issued (Dedić et al. 2004 and Beznec et al (ed.) 2007). On the other side, there are numerous statements given by politicians to various Slovenian media about the issue, throughout the period of over 16 years. In addition, some members of the European United Left have brought this issue before the European Parliament, thus making it officially recognized. Many legal experts, from private and state legal offices, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia and lately from the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, have been and are still working hard to grasp the essence of the problem: whether the erasure has ever happened and if so, what are its consequences and future steps to be taken in relation to both the erased themselves and the Slovenian government. The Slovenian and European activists in their everyday activities, including debates, protests and lectures given at different forms of ‘nomadic universities’ present and revitalize the problem.2 The phenomenon of the erased is well known among Italian, French and Spanish activists in relation to the issue of marginalization and exclusion of people without citizenship in a country they actually live in. These discrepancies pertaining to the level of interest among the members of different branches (that is, scientists, lawyers, activists) make this phenomenon even more tempting for research. My intention is neither to give an overall description of the phenomenon, nor to provide a final word coming from one “objective”, “outside” point 1 Similar opinion is presented in the latest, but also only second book fully dedicated to the erased “Zgodba nekega izbrisa” (for example, see Zorn and Lipovec Čebron 2007, 11). It must be mentioned that the Slovenian Peace Institute implemented the project on the erased in 2007. Some results are published, but there isn’t any overall publication yet. 2 One remark about symbols and typographical conventions should be given: ‘single quotation-marks’ will be used for phrases, while “double quotation-marks” will be used for meanings, quotations, etc. This may seam too pedantic, however, it is necessary to show the difference among ‘the erased’ and the erased, a phrase and an entity. Italics is used for languages other than English. 6 of view. On the contrary, my primary concern lays in the manner of conceptualization of the erased by the people who “talk” about them. Being theoretically orientated towards the field of the pragmatic linguistics, I am going to analyze discourse about the erased with an aim to find out how this theoretical framework can contribute to the understanding of the phenomenon. My working hypothesis is that taking into consideration the erased as a primarily discursive phenomenon, some aspects of its occurrence that would otherwise stay indistinct, might actually be revealed. It will be shown that the existence of the erased as a constellation of the real people occupying some specifiable place and time is inherently related to the creation of a metaphor, i.e. a cognitive device capable of obtaining different meanings dependable on the circumstances of the uttering. The erased, conceived as a metaphor, can further explain the operationalization of the phrase and its meanings and their instrumentalization for various goals, from expressing a political standpoint or even to allure voters, to portraying a personal life misfortune, for example. The pragmatic linguistic approach to this phenomenon may contribute to its thorough examination by assessing circumstances of the uttering and thus resulting in the specification of the contexts within which the metaphorical change of the meaning of the phrase “the erased” occurs. Context can be understood as “a rather undefined mass of factors that play a role in the production and consumption of the utterances” (Mey 1993, 8). In pragmatic linguistics, a context is considered as being dynamic and proactive, constantly developing in continuous interaction of people engaged in language use and not retroactive and static (Mey 1993, 10). Therefore, even though the specification of the contexts is necessary, it can never be complete. However, it may show some trends related to both conceptual and actual changes the phenomenon has undergone throughout 16 years of its existence. The text shall comprise five major sections: In the first section, “Assessing the phenomenon of the erased”, I will give a short ‘encyclopaedic information’ (as opposed to presenting ‘dictionary meaning’) about the erased. While encyclopaedic information is based on encyclopaedic knowledge, that is, 7 knowledge of the contingent properties of entities, dictionary meaning corresponds to definitional knowledge, that is, knowledge about the essential properties of entities (see Fillmore 1997, 6; Marmaridou 2000, 45). For the reason that this distinction is difficultly if at all applied to experiential utterances, which always happen in a variety social contexts, with this emphasis on encyclopaedic information I am estimating my standpoint that there is no truth about the erased. The description of the phenomena I’ll give tends to present empirically justifiable text which will serve as an axis in relation to which I will analyze discourse. This means, that the description will be “underlying truth” in the context of this text and its goal will be to distinguish the erased from other legal and administrative categories of Slovenian population. The question of the problem of description and differentiation will be addressed. The goal of this introductory section is to present the material and the method which will be used in the text. It should be mentioned here that this text will be primarily of the theoretical character. The erased will be taken as an example of discursive “life” of the phenomena which are perceived as real, that is, existing in the world. The material will be analyzed from the different theoretical perspectives (see bellow) having that in common that they deal with the question of uttering, i.e.