240 241 FOREGROUNDING REFERENTS: A RECONSIDERATION OF LEFT DISLOCATION IN DISCOURSE Secondly, left-dislocation is a formal operation that transforms one sentence into another. However, many Elinor Ochs Keenan of the constructions in our data look more like dis­ Un i versity of Southern California courses than sentences. That this has not been previously Bambi Schieff elin appreciated is due to the failure to examine these con­ Columbia Un iversity str uctions in their context of use . In the discussion to follow we consider the communi­ I. GOALS AND ORIENTATION cative work being performed in utterances o f the form: In this paper we discuss a set of verbal construc­ Referent + Proposition. This involves first familiarizing t ions found in spontaneous conversational discourse . the reader with the discourse contexts in which such These constructions have in common the following format: utterances are employed . In particular, we turn our Refe'.ent +,Pi;-o~ osition . _That is, some referent is attention to the role of the initial referent in the specified initially and is then followed by a proposition discourse. What is the relation of the initial referent relevant in some way to this referent. to the discourse history, for example? What is the relation of the initial referent to subsequent discourse? (1) GTS4 -l We argue that the status of the initial referent as definite (K has been talking about fact that his car /new or given/new (Chafe 1975) needs further clarification. radio was taken from his car) Specifically it will be argued that a critical factor is REF the need of the speaker to provide appropriate old infor­ K: They cleaned me out. And my father oh he ' s mation, i . e. old information relevant to the main point PR OP expressed about the referent. //he's fit to be tied . After assessing the function of these constructions R: Tell Daddy to buy you some more. in the discourse a t hand, we present alternative strategies for carrying out the same communicative work . These Fo r example, in (1), "And my father oh he's- I/he's fit strategies involve a sequence of two or more utterances. to be tied." represents such a construction . Here the In the first utterance, a referent is introduced into the referent expressed by "my father" is semantically related discourse . In the subsequent utterance(s), propositions to the subsequent proposition "he's- I/he's fit to be tied . " relevant to that referent are expressed. We argue that ~onstructions of this type have been previously Referent+Proposition constructions share many of the described as left-dislocations (Chafe 1975, Gruber 1967, properties of these sequences. Gundel 1975 , Ross 1967 for example). Left- dislocation represents a transformation that moves an NP within the II . DATA BASE sentenc~. The term left- dislocation is not entirely Our analysis is based primarily on transcriptions approp~iate ~o the constructions considered in the present made by G. Jefferson of five group therapy sessions ~n~l~sis. First, although the proposition following the (GTS) in which severa l adolescents took part (approxi­ ~nitial ~eferent usually contains a coreferential pronoun, ma tely 500 pages). Material on children's use of the it sometimes does not . Example (2) illustrates such a cons tructions und er study is drawn from transcriptions case: of the convers ations of twins recorded over the period of a year. (33 mos. - 45 mos . ) ( Keenan 19"/4) . (2) Two Girls; 8 (in discussion about reading required for courses) III . ROLE OF REFERENT+ PROPOSITION IN THE DISCOURSE REF HISTORY B: ohh I g'ta tell ya one course, ((pause)) A. BRING I NG REFERENTS INTO DISCOURSE: A: (incred- ) What is the speaker doing when he produces utterances REF of the form "Referent+Proposition", as expressed in B: The mo - the modern art the twentieth century example (l)? As a first step in answering this question, PROP we construct a series of hypothetical discourses . Imagine art, there's about eight books . the following dialogues: 242 243 Interlocutor A Interlocutor B (2) GTS4:15 As for REF PROP * (A) What happened to Tom? Concerning Tom, he left. K: Uh Pat McGee. I don't know if you know him, he ? (B) What happened to Tom? Tom, he left. -he lives in//Palisades. (C) What happened to Tom? His car, it broke down, J : I know him real well as a matter of fa(hh) and he ' s depressed. (he's) one of my best friends K: He - he used to go to the school I did// an' he­ Each of these dialogues varies in its degree of accepta­ J : No , no ( hh) bility . Dialogue (A) appears the most awkward, and in K: He was in the dorm with me, and I was over him- fact, we did not find any instances in the data in which and he- he had a room/ An' he­ as for X, concerning X, appeared following an immediately J: No! ( hh)//hehheh prior mention of X. (B) as well is odd . The most K: - he despised· me. natural way to utter such a sequence is to utter the \ . (3) GTS 1:97 second "Tom" with a question intonation, indicating that REF perhaps he had not heard the speaker, e.g . "Tom? He left". L : yeh, that c'd b e, cawss my sister, 'hh she We can imagine, however, that such a discourse is possible PROP if a long pause separates the two utterances and/or if en her boy friend jus broke up becawss he ast the addressee(B) repeats "Tom" in the course of searching me tu me tuh go out with um: for an adequate response. (4) GTS3:62 Discourse (C) is by far the most natural of the (Adolescents discussing how parents treat them) three presented here. And in fact, constructions of the K: Yeah// Yea h ! No matter how old// you are form "Referent + Proposition" appear most often in L: Yeah . Mh hm precisely this sort of discourse environment, namely, REF an environment in which the referent ·does not appear L: Parents don ' t understand. But all grownups in the immediately prior discourse . Chafe (1974) dis­ PROP cusses the fact that may or may not be presently in the w-they do it to kids. Whether they 're your consciousness of the hearer. If a referent i s in the own or not. consciousness of the hearer, the referent is said to be "foregrounded". In English foregrounded information 2.) On the other hand, some referent may have been may be syntactically marked by the speaker by use of in the foreground of the interlocutor's mind at some the definite article, anaphoric pronoun, relative clause prior point in the conversation but feel to the back­ and the like. We would like to claim here that in pro­ ground subsequently . In these instances, the speaker ducing constructions of the form "Referent + Proposition" may use the "Referent+Proposition" construction to speakers are performing work of precisely the o~posite REINTRODUCE a referent into the discourse. · It should sort: Rather than presenting information that is already be emphasized here that a referent may fall into the in the foreground of the listener ' s consciousness , the background rapidly after its first mention. It some­ s eaker brin s a referent into the fore round of the times happens that a referent must be reforegrounded listeners consciousness ee also Sanko & Brown 1975). after one turn or even after one utterance within a turn . With respect to the interactional history of the inter­ Example (5) illustrates a re-introduced referent: locutors, the referent is usuall not currentl a "center of attention i.e. not usually the current topic in (5) GTS3:37 the sense described by Li and Thompson 1976) . In pro­ K: An ' I got a red sweater, an' a white one, an' ducing constructions of this sort , the speaker makes the a blue one, an' a yellow one , an' a couple referent a "center of attention" (See also Payne 1974) . o ther sweaters, you know , And uh my sister Typically , the initial referent is some entity loves borrowing my sweaters because they're known to or knowable by the hearer from the non- verbal pullovers, you know, an' she c'n wear a blouse context of the utterance from some prior background under 'em an' she thinks "Well this i s great" experience . In other words, it is some entity that the (pause) hearer can identify or recognize . The referent may or REF PROP may not have been discussed at some point in the current K: An ' so my red sweater, I haven't seen it since discourse participated in by the interlocutors: 1 . ) In many cases, the speaker uses the "Referent+ Pr oposition" construction to INTRODUCE discourse-new I got it . referents. Examples (2) (3) & (4) exhibit this work: 244 245 B. FUNCTIONS OF FOREGROUNDING: Once the global funct i on of these constructions, It isn ' t a l way s the case that the introduction of novel i . e. to bring into the foreground or focus on some referent s as particular c a ses involves speaker change . referent (c.f . Sankoff & Brown 1975), is understood ; I n many cases, a speak er ma y bring up a certain point more par ticular functions of this phenomenon ma ke sen se. and use the "Refer ent + Proposi t i on" construction to l)ALTERNATIVES: In many cases , the spea ker uses t h is illustrate his/ her own po int . For exa mple in (7) below, construction to bring in a different referent f r om one there has been s ome discussion a bout how parents never previously specified with respect to some parti cular t reat t heir c hildren as ma ture individuals (see also predication.