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Pragmatics in the Late Twentieth Century: Countering R-Ecent Historiographic Neglect1

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Pragmatics in the Late Twentieth Century: Countering R-Ecent Historiographic Neglect1 Pragmatics4:4.461 - 489 InternationalPragmatics Association PRAGMATICS IN THE LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY: COUNTERING R-ECENTHISTORIOGRAPHIC NEGLECT1 Jon F. Pressman 1. Introduction As an unavoidableconsequence of the marketplacephenomenon that typifies the 'factionalization' contemporaryacademy (Bourdieu 1988[1984]), the of the socialand behavioralsciences into sub-disciplines,academic specializations, theoretical schools, and methodologicalminorities can causegrave problems for the historiography2of suchdisciplines. The studyof pragmaticsin the late twentiethcentury suffers from such a historiographic crisis. Divided into linguistic and anthropological linguistic orientations,the former is essentiallyunaware of the insightsstemming from the latter, severalexceptions notwithstanding (e.g., Verschueren1994). In taking stock of the theoreticalinfluences that haveshaped contemporary pragmatics, clearly some relevant approacheshave receivedlittle attention, or have been overlooked entirely, by the linguisticfaction" One such omissionis the intellectuallineage initiated by Roman Jakobsonand followed up by his student,Michael Silverstein.The contributionsmade by thesetwo individuals,and by studentswho have continuedin this lineage,warrant reconsiderationhistoriographically if for nothing more than bringing sociocultural considerationsto bear on linguistic pragmatic problems. As one prominent anthropologicallinguist has observed, "pragmatic studies within linguistics and philosophyare stronglyinfluenced by the theoreticaland methodologicalconcerns of those disciplines,which have very little interest or expertisein the study of culture" (Duranti 1994:11).This paper attemptsto redressthis historiographicomission by enumerating on the recent contributions of Jakobson, Silverstein, and two of Silverstein'sstudents. Recently,Steve Caton (1993)has argued that "it is not unreasonableto date the beginningof a modern linguisticpragmatics from the publication in 1957of Roman Jakobson's'Shifters, verbal categories,and the Russian verb"' (1993: 335 fn.6)" 1 I am grateful to Regina Bendix, Ward Goodenough, John Lucy, and an anonymous reviewer for detailed comments on an earlier version of this paper. Any oversights or miscontruals are my own. 'historiography' 2 The term is broadly construed herein to indicate the activity of textual exegesis where the text under interpretation has become a commodified entity in this marketplace. The amount of time that has passedsince a text became available is irrelevant, as is the complete versus incomplete statusof the author's oeuvre. 462 Jon F. Pressntan Pragmaticsin its socioculturalapplication3 has its intellectualorigins in the semiotic philosophiesof CharlesPeirce (1931) and CharlesMorris (1938)and yet, Jakobson's contributions to this now pervasivemode of inquiry in anthropologicallinguistics should not be overlooked.Jakobson (7976,1977), in fact, hasdiscussed Peirce's influence with tremendousgratitude and lamentsthe fact that he was the first linguistwho utilizedthe theories of this 'pathfinder' in the scienceof language.oBorrowing certain semiotic ideasfrom the writingsof Peirce,especially his tripartite distinctionof icon, index,and 'parole,' symbol,as well as the Saussureandistinction between 'langue' and the most significantpoint of Jakobson's1957 article is to demarcateprecisely the extentto which information about parole is encodedin grammar,referential indexes or'shifters'cited as the linguisticsigns responsible for this phenomenon.5Even though he never formally advanceda theory of pragmatics,it is in his 1957 paper that Jakobson (1896-1982) ushered in what would become the defining concern of anthropologicallinguistic pragmaticsin later years.This was an insistencethat the context-sensitiveor pragmatic function of speech have the same scholarlyattention paid to it as the referential function of speechhad for some time before. Jakobsonmust equallyget creditfor reawakeningin linguisticsan interestin the functional analysisof the speechevent, and it is his 1960paper, "Closingstatement: linguisticsand poetics,"where we find his clearestconception of this approach,the so- called 'means-end'model of the Prague Linguistic Circle, as describedin his 1971 [1963]paper. Whereas much of previoustheory had listedgeneral sociological functions of languageuse (e.g.,Bthler 1990[1934]), the role of linguisticsign therein unclear, Jakobson proposed to begin with an analysisof the speech situation, placing the linguisticsign within it, and derivingan exhaustivetypology of functionsas they relate to the constituentfactors of the situation.What Jakobsonreferred to as "the pragmatic approach to language"(1971, [1968]: 703) was this positingof a basic set of functions involved in the communicativeact. That is, the referential,emotive, conative,phatic, poetic, and metalingualfunctions within a given speechsituation vary in their relative importance and expressivesalience, but are always present in the situation. In advancingsuch a functionalism,Jakobson showed that linguisticforms covary as the relationsamong componentsof the speechevent changeand are modified. Regarded as a pioneer of this functionalist approach in the analysis of the speech act, subsequentlyfollowed up by anthropologicallinguists Dell Hymes (1968 11962),I974a [1970],,1974b,7975) and Michael Silverstein(I975a, I976b, 1985a),Jakobson brought to structural linguisticsa model for demonstratingthat contextualfactors necessarily impinge on languageform itself. Jakobson'sfactor-function characterization of the 3 What Jane Hill (L992) has referred to as the "anthropologicalcritique of pragmatics" (1992:67). o For a detailed discussion of Jakobson's intellectual dependenceon Peirce, I refer the reader to Bruss (1978), Gorl€e (1992), Liszka (1981), and Petrilli (L992). 'duplex 5 So-called because these signs' simultaneously shift their focus at the level of messageand code. Pragmaticsin thelate 20th cenrury 463 speechevent inaugurateda new perspectivein the anthropologyof language,supplying the basisfor a pragmaticorientation that would, in later years,yield dramatic results in anthropologicalfieldwork and ethnolinguisticscholarship.o The aim of this paper is to outline the bedrock of a modern pragmaticsinherent in Jakobson's1960 and later works,Tspecifically in his exegesisof the factor-functionapproach to the speechact. In what follows, I will trace linear movementsalong shared intel'lectual- theoreticaltraditions of the late twentieth century,influential trends which recreated and modified thesetraditions. As an exercisein intellectualhistory, this paper will chart Jakobson'sfunctionalist orientation on the speechact through Silverstein's(b. 1945) retoolingof suchunder the aegisof pragmatics,culminating with a discussiontouching on the recent work of severalof Silverstein'sstudents, Charles Briggs (b. 1953) and Greg Urban (b. 1949),both of whom havemade contributionsto ethnolinguisticsfrom sucha pragmaticorientation. Silverstein's approach warrants attention insofar as he has integratedtheoretical claims laid out separatelyby Jakobsonin his 1957 and 1960 papers.Silverstein's formulation of pragmaticssynthesizes Jakobson's 1957 notion of speechindexicality with his 1960functional diagram of the speechevent, two concepts Jakobsonnever himself connected.Further, Silverstein's(1985b) article presentsthis integrationin ethnolinguisticcontext, and both Briggsand Urban rely on this approach in their own studies. On a more generallevel, this paper seeksto addressa problem in intellectual historiography.One of the unfortunatecircumstances that accruesto many instances of historiographyof the social and behavioralsciences is the widespreadneglect of researchthat does not follow suit with prevailingnotions of what constitutessuch a exercise,or what type of content ought to be included in such a historiographical project. Aggrevating the problem is the stance endorsed by some historians of intellectual property that various approaches to empirical phenomena may be discountedand judged ineffectual on grounds that the property in historiographic questiondiffers too profoundly with their own theoreticalor methodologicalagenda. Thesescholars concentrate on largeportions of somehistoriographic achievement, yet includein their discussiononly thoseideas that corroboratethe historiographicobject from a priviligedposition. Well-informed proponents may be placated,chalking up such neglectto a type of historiographicideology, however it is difficult to ignore oversights that misrepresentseminal portions of the history. As I explainedabove, the situationis particularlyproblematic in pragmatics,a field of studyconsisting of both linguisticand anthropologicallinguistic groupings, the influenceof the former supersedingthat of the latter only in membershipcount, not in the ability to accountfor patterned,linguistic phenomena. For example,among the 'ethnolinguistic' 'anthropological 6 In the present paper, I will be utilizing the term and linguistic' in a synonymous manner. 7For this statement to be valid, Jakobson's1956 paper, "Metalanguageas a linguistic problem," must be included in this 1960 and later rubric. The major portion of the the 1956 article is reiterated, quite literally, in this 1960 paper, and so this does not really cause any overt chronological discrepancies. 464 JonF. Pressntun four major historiographictexts on pragmaticspublished in the last ten to fifteen years by linguists(i.e., Gazdar 7979;Leech 1983;Levinson 1983; and Mey \993), the overall neglectafforded
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