Adriana Vizental Interpreting Texts An Introduction to Linguistic Analysis Second edition, revised Part 3. Language in use Manipulating meaning & communicative strategies Editura Universităţii „Aurel Vlaicu”, Arad 2019 1 ISBN GENERAL 978-973-752-824-7 ISBN vol 3 : 978-973-752-827-8 2 Interpreting texts. Part 3 Language in use. Manipulating meaning & communicative strategies Contents Language in use. Manipulating meaning & communicative strategies 5 A. Context & meaning 6 1. The linguistic context 6 Model analyses 1. The dictionary vs. the world 6 Text 1. Knowledge of the dictionary 6 Text 2. Knowledge of the world 7 2. The non-linguistic context. Discourse analysis 7 Model analyses 2. Meaning in context 8 Text 1. Features of the context. I have no knife 8 Text 2. Deixis. Do this now … 8 3. Manipulating the context 10 Model analyses 3. Manipulating context 10 Text 1. Manipulating discourse types. Snickers 10 Text 2. Manipulating setting & participants. Strip Search 12 B. Language in use. Doing things with the language 16 1. Speech acts & levels of meaning 16 Model analyses 4. Language functions & text interpretation 16 Text 1. Saying vs. doing. Eighth Sin 16 Text 2. Disambiguating meaning. Get Lucky 17 2. Indirectness 19 Model analyses 5. Factors that govern indirectness 19 Text 1. Offering. Coca Cola 19 Text 2. Asking for help 19 Model analyses 6. Strategies of indirectness 20 Text 1. Avoidance. The Dursleys 20 Text 2. Inciting by way of presupposition & entailment. The threat of communism 21 C. Language in interaction 24 1. Cooperation & conversational implicature 24 Model analysis 7. Four levels of meaning. B&Bs in Scotland 24 Model analyses 8. The Maxims of cooperation 25 Text 1. Observing the Maxims: implying more meaning. Marlboro Classics 26 Text 2. Flouting the maxims: implying a different meaning. Female keywords 27 Model analyses 9. Cooperation & indirectness. Examples 28 3 2. Negotiating meaning 30 Model analyses 10. Managing ambiguity & misunderstanding 30 Text 1. Locution vs. illocution. A classroom interaction 30 Text 2. Context & reference. An SMS exchange 30 Text 3. Interpreting metaphor. My Fair Lady 31 Text 4. Strategic vagueness. Snatch 32 3. Power positions (P) 34 Model analyses 11. Negotiating power positions 34 Text 1. Staging & imposition. My Fair Lady: Alphie vs. Henry Higgins 35 Text 2. Manipulating D & P. The King’s Speech 37 D. Politeness & indirectness 40 1. Strategies of politeness 41 Model analyses 12. Keeping communication lines in good repair 41 Text 1. Negative politeness with redress. Pretty Woman 41 Text 2. Doing FTAs off the record. Vintage car Costică 43 2. Flouting the Maxims of cooperation & politeness 44 Model analysis 13. Miscommunication & tragedy. Crash 44 E. The democratization of modern discourses 46 Model analyses 14. Great speeches & persuasion 48 Text 1. Indirectness, politeness & persuasion. I have a dream... 48 Text 2. The user-friendliness of modern discourses. TED talks 50 Final conclusions & suggestions for further work 54 Projects suggested 54 Tips for your PowerPoint presentation 63 Model projects 65 Model project 1. Participants and communicative roles. Interview for Code Club 65 Model project 2. Strategies of indirectness. Locution vs. illocution in print advertising 67 Model project 3. Persuasion. A football coach’s inspirational speech (PPT) 73 https://www.slideshare.net/Vizental/3apersuasion-inspirational-speech Model project 4. Negotiating power positions in The walking Dead ( PPT) 79 https://www.slideshare.net/Vizental/3bnegotiating-powerpositions-the-walking-dead Model project 5. The politeness of advertising. E.U. YES LA VOT 85 https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/key/k6jyGmPsL4dzfp Bibliographic suggestions for Part 3 of Interpreting texts 90 4 Interpreting texts. Part 3 Language in use. Manipulating meaning & communicative strategies1 Part 1 of Interpreting texts surveyed the relationship between language & personal image – hence the question, Who’s the speaker? –, giving precedence to oral communication. Part 2. Text & message. Special effects and manipulating meaning, has tried to answer the question of how the sender (S) exploits language to create a richer and more subtle message; the majority of the texts surveyed were written. The tools employed for the analyses were those provided by the branches of linguistics2: phonetics/phonology, grammar, semantics and discourse analysis (especially after the introduction of multi-modal texts). Furthermore, survey of ways in which writers exploit and manipulate language to enhance its efficiency, or how context affects the meaning of the lexical text, involved the introduction of some notions of pragmatics. The gap between linguistic competence and communicative language competence3 was also discussed in Part 2. It was argued that word choice, grammatical complexity and stylistic accuracy pertain to S’s socio-linguistic competence; that exploitation and manipulation of the language involve S’s strategic competence; that interlocutors often rely on their knowledge of the world (i.e. pragmatic knowledge) to interpret a text correctly; etc. Pragmatic phenomena – e.g. context, language functions and Speech Acts, indirectness, cooperation, politeness – will be surveyed more thoroughly in Part 3 of Interpreting texts – Language in use. Manipulating meaning & communicative strategies. Among the questions to be answered are: How does context affect the meaning of the text? How does S do things with the language? How do interlocutors negotiate meaning? How can S appear to be polite? How does S manage to attract attention and persuade? Etc. Note. The participants/interlocutors are referred to as: Sender (S), who may be the Speaker (S), the writer of the text, the company advertising a product, etc.; Receiver (R), who may be the Hearer (H), the Target Audience (TA), or someone else Actor/Addresser (A), i.e. the active character, the speaker or interpreter of the text; the Represented Participant of visuals. 1 As theoretical support for Part 3, see Interpreting text. Part 4: Annexes 1 – 8. See also the Bibliography at the end of each volume of Interpreting texts. 2 See Interpreting text. Part 4: Annex 1 (A). The linguistic framework. 3 See Interpreting text. Part 4: Annex 1 (B). Communicative language competence. 5 A. Context & meaning4 It was mentioned in the previous volumes that communication takes place in a context, i.e. an environment that affects the meaning of S’s words. At this point, let us survey the notion of context more thoroughly. 1. The linguistic context Each word/utterance comes within a linguistic context, consisting of the words, sentences/utterances or paragraphs that precede and/or follow it and together with which they convey a coherent message. The linguistic context affects the meaning of the individual items, and at the same time, it helps the hearer to disambiguate ambiguous constructs. Jokes are very good examples to show how imaginative speakers can play with the language. On the other hand, jokes also show that linguistic competence alone (i.e. knowledge of the dictionary and of grammar) is often insufficient for decoding an ambiguous text: receivers need to make use of their pragmatic competence (i.e. their knowledge of the world, or encyclopedic knowledge) to understand such texts. Consider the following jokes: Model analyses 1. The dictionary vs. the world Goal of the analyses: to survey the effect context on the meaning of a text; - to show that R needs both knowledge of the dictionary and knowledge of the world to decode ambiguous texts Text 1. Knowledge of the dictionary A panda bear goes into a fast food, orders a hamburger, eats it, shoots several people and leaves the place. A man who happened to see it all, asks in surprise, ‗Why did you do that?‘ ‗Look up ―panda‖ in the dictionary,‘ replies the bear. The man goes home, looks up ‗panda‘ in the dictionary and reads: ‗panda = animal that eats shoots and leaves.‘ The panda bear in the joke is obviously not a competent speaker of English. He is unable to handle the ambiguity that results from: lexical homonymy: o shoot: 1. to hit/wound with a missile; 2. young plant o leaves: 1. pl. of leaf, i.e. expanded organ of plants; 2. departs grammatical homonymy: o shoots: 1. verb, present, 3rd pers. sg.; 2. noun, plural o leaves: 1. noun = part of a plant; 2. verb = to depart, present, 3rd pers. sg. punctuation: in the case of a succession of three predicates, a comma is placed after the first one: “... eats, shoots and leaves.” Those who enjoy the joke are obviously better speakers of English than he is. But to thoroughly enjoy such types of texts, the receiver must generally rely on his knowledge of the world and of society; in this case: panda bears do not speak, they are unlikely to go into a fast food or to have a gun, etc. 4 For the theoretical support, see Interpreting text. Part 4: Annex 8. Discourse analysis & pragmatics (A) 6 In addition, numerous funny texts exploit realities going on in the world or in a certain region; to understand them, we need our pragmatic knowledge. Text 2. Knowledge of the world They once said that a black man would be President when pigs flew. His first 100 days and – wham!! Pig's flu! Just like the panda joke, this one also relies on R’s knowledge of the dictionary, o the idiom when pigs fly = never o homonymy: flew = past tense of “to fly”; flu = a disease But R also needs knowledge of the world/encyclopedic knowledge, i.e. to know about: o the racial discrimination raging in America o the nearly simultaneous occurrence of . a disease that terrified the entire world (pig’s flu) . the election of the first African-American president of the USA; Tragic moments are well-known to produce examples of excellent (black) humor. Conclusion Competent communicators need not only a mental dictionary, but also a rich mental encyclopedia.