Appunti presi a lezione di Lingua inglese (corso completo secondo anno)

Text linguistics

Definitions of text

Text as the verbal component produced by a writer and is processed by a recipient. Textus (lat.): texture - text.

Halliday and Hasan: cohesive relations make a text

• Cohesion: grammatical ties that link words → we perceive it as a text
• Grammatical
  • Reference: how words are related with other words (both inside and outside of the text). Elements that refer to something else for their interpretation
  • Deixis: term used for words whose meaning arises by referring to some aspect of the context in which they are spoken → speaker: deictic centre (unmarked situation: me, here, now)
    • Person deixis → I - we - now (ambiguity)
    • Time deixis → now - then (proximal - distal) = close to the deictic centre = further away
    • Place deixis → here - there (proximal - distal)
  • Endophoric reference: words that refer to other words occurring within the text
    • Anaphoric reference → more frequent
    • Cataphoric reference (=referring forward to something that will follow in the text) → less frequent
  • Exophoric reference: words that can only be explained with reference to the external social and political circumstances of the text
  • Substitution: replacement of a word or clause
  • Ellipses: substitution by zero
  • Conjunction
• Lexical
  • Collocation: frequency with which words are found together or co-occur. Defined by usage (not by grammatical, semantic or syntactic use)
  • Repetition:
    • Simple
    • Complex

De Beaugrande and Dressler: text = communicative event that must satisfy 7 criteria

Text internal criteria

• Cohesion
• Coherence: deals with mental processes activated in both the producer and the recipient when the communicative event takes place

Text external criteria

• Intentionality: use of cohesion and coherence to achieve a goal through words
• Acceptability
• Informativity: quality and quantity → more or less information
• Situationality: context in which the text occurs → recipient's prior knowledge/background info
• Intertextuality: Mikhail Bakhtin's assertion (1986) that every text is dialogic (=interpretable in relation to other texts)
  • Relation to preceding or simultaneous or even future texts
  • Relation to other texts (e.g., text types or genres) → Parodies

From text to discourse

De Beaugrande and Dressler's definition of text → distinction between text and discourse.

• Pure text linguists (TL) give more emphasis to the text internal criteria
• Discourse analysts (DA) give more emphasis to the external criteria
• De Beaugrande and Dressler recognize the importance of the context but focus mainly on the text itself (as they're TLs)
• Whereas DAs consider text and context as equally important

Text = linguistic content but not the inferences available to the recipient. Discourse = text + social, cultural, and personal context of the recipient.

TL and DA approaches

• TL → formal approach: language is a mental phenomenon; study on the base of the formal component
• DA → functional approach: language is a social phenomenon

Discourse is multimodal: we have to consider not only the linguistic content but also sign language, dramatization, speaker's disposition, the way they stand, talk, walk, laugh...

Norman Fairclough's model of a communicative event (1992)

• Text: analysis of TL and looks for patterns (syntax, lexis)
• Discourse practice: patterns associated with a given topic or activity; processes of text production/consumption
• Social practice: patterns in both the immediate situational context as well as the society and culture in which the text is produced

DA as a multidisciplinary approach. It involves:

• Poetics
• Linguistics
• Semiotics
• Psychology
• Sociology
• Anthropology
• History
• Communication research

Introduction to LSPs/ESP

General English = Essential English: basic elements of the language, common core of the English language → nobody needs it, everybody has their own specific needs.

LSP: Languages for Specific Purposes

Languages in use within more restricted social and professional areas.

• Meeting specific needs
• Related in content to particular disciplines
• Centred on appropriate language
• In contrast to the general language

Example: Topic of "negotiation" → domain: business.

ESP: English for Specific Purposes

Transition for an uncontextualized view of language to a situational, contextualized one.

EAP: English for Academic Purposes

Teaching English with the aim of assisting learners' study or research in the language.

Characteristics of LSPs

• Contextual-functional varieties of the language used in specific domains of civil, professional and institutional life → defined with reference to the professional, disciplinary or technical field to which they pertain
• No special grammatical or phonological rules → tendency to give preference to certain morpho-syntactic forms → specialized lexicon / specific vocabulary

Levels of variation in LSP

• Lexicon
• Syntax
• Textual and rhetorical organization

Within each LSP. Variation in terms of:

• Technicality (participation framework)
  • Scientific journalism
  • Scientific instruction (= teachers - learners)
  • Scientific exposition (= language of scientists)
• Degree of formality (register)

Example: Explaining String Theory

• Scientific journalism: simple language, e.g., cat explaining String Theory → makes it less scary and more engaging
• Scientific instruction: e.g., Lectures on String Theory, 1989 (handbook) by Dieter Luest and Stefan Theisen
• Scientific exposition: written by a scholar to his peers

Genres and text types

Genre analysis

• Close relationship between text and context
• "Appropriateness" → culture-specific
• Expectations → you can expect certain scripts (e.g., YouTube tutorial, sales assistant, etc.)

Video: Generic Presidential Campaign Ad

Video: Generic Brand Video

Texts and contextual focus

• Descriptive texts
• Narrative texts
• Expository texts
• Argumentative texts
• Instructive texts

Descriptive

• Literary genres, musical genres, tourist genres

Narrative

• Autobiography, fairy stories, adventure stories, mystery, science fiction, horror stories, myths, and legends

Expository

• Dictionary definitions, entries in reference books, keyword outlines, summaries

Argumentative

• Comments, editorials, interviews, leading articles, letters to the editor
• Text rich in evaluative language

Political discourse and oratory

Political discourse analysis (PDA)

• Aim: discover and indicate the ways in which language is skillfully used for political purposes
• Politics is about trust → achieved through manipulation and 'spin'
• Spin = determining an angle on a story aimed at casting a person, group or issue in a positive light
• It is persuasive → aims at affecting people's electoral behaviour
• It's important for us to be alert, but not necessarily suspicious → awareness of how language is used in PD

Example: Orwell accuses politicians of distorting the English language and producing "political gobbledygook"

Wilson "biosphere overload" = "overpopulation"

• The meanings of words depend on who uses them and in what context

Example: What does it mean to be a 'socialist'? Who are 'we' and who are 'them'? → US vs THEM

• Manipulation at different levels:
  • Lexis → strategical placement of words and expressions
  • Syntax → different usage depending on the ideological goal (use of) active/passive/ergative forms
  • Phonology → phonological variables can carry political loading (accent, way of speaking) → almost all politicians are trained on how to talk
  • Pragmatics → ways in which a text can convey a hidden/implicit meaning
• PDA IS POLITICAL → some analyses may become as political as linguistic

Oratory and the political speech

Oratory and rhetoric

• Oratory = art of formal public speaking; clear speaker purpose; application of rhetoric to speech making
• Rhetoric = formal study of persuasion, including both speech and writing

The participation framework of public speeches has expanded thanks to the advent of Internet technologies.

Importance of the audience

• Role as important as the one of the orator
• If you're able to connect with your audience it means you gained their trust
• How? → choice of language, speaking skills
• Establish a relationship highlighting that you share the same ideologies → trust

Importance of the medium

• Understanding of the media → how to attain maximum effect on the audience
• Now: potentially global audience
• Ability to exploit the new medium
• Inability to exploit it → unsuccessful orators

Individualistic nature of the speech

• More detailed preparation of speeches because now we understand what works and what doesn't → speechwriters come up with speeches, making them coherent, cohesive etc. for the orator to create a connection with the audience
• Creation of trust and dialogue with listeners as well as their self-confidence
• Big Data enables politicians, corporations etc. to understand people's behaviours, language → e.g., comments, debates created on social media (keywords, metaphors, people's behaviours can be strategically adopted or avoided)

Branches of oratory

• Different contexts → different branches:
  • Deliberative: deliberate or recite; typical in voting → influences the passing of a veil
  • Epideictic: ceremonial events (especially funerals, weddings...); applauding → celebrating someone/something
  • Judicial: law courts (not in political discourse): passing judgement → ensuring justice

Deliberative oratory

• Policy-making
• Delivered to a decision-making body
• Establish benefit or harm that may be expected from a certain course of action → influencing the decision of an institutional body

Epideictic oratory

• Addressed to an audience assembled to honour or commemorate an individual
• Arouse emotions appropriate to the ceremonial occasion in the audience
• Establish shared values + aims at consensus-building

Thatcherism

The genre of the party conference speech

• Communicative purpose: designed to cheer up and inspire, or at least conciliate the faithful
• Epideictic → community-unifying statement of vision
• Example: Sermon: maintain and strengthen the ideology and social bonds that already exist within the congregation → define and defend a vision for the community
• Meant to shape the identity of the community they address by defining or redefining the party's values and vision
• Medium: oral delivery of a written text
• Audience: party assembly / general public
• Soundbites: slogans full of meaning that they were sure they would be picked up by the media and spread (hashtags, trends...)

Moves of the big conference speech

• Joke → sense of humour
• Thanking the predecessor → they are obliged by the generic convention
• Self-portrait of the leader → establish their persona: pick some qualities so that the audience can remember you clearly
  • Example: Trump = businessman, Obama = heir of Martin Luther King
• Expressing a vision: shared vision
• Attack the opposition → US vs THEM: emphasise the differences
• The peroration → leader's arguments summed up

Margaret Thatcher

• One of the most influential political figures of the 20th century England
• The 'Iron Lady' → she became the Conservative Party leader in 1975 (end of the Cold War) → she adopted that nickname
  • The 'Iron Curtain'
• Similar situation USA-UK
• Shift towards left wing party
• The state had to be a Welfare State → no one had to be excluded
• Society = families, individuals → you are NOT responsible for the homeless
• She was not a negotiator
• Her politics:
  • Reduced state intervention in the economy (deregulation): mines were closing because coal was not being used anymore, miners were desperate and were becoming sick → unemployment because Thatcher was refusing to help them → strikes
• Another enemy was the IRA: she did not negotiate and she survived an attack of the IRA
• Free market
• Privatization of nationally-owned enterprises
• Introduction of market mechanisms into health and education
• Falkland Islands War (vs Argentina)
• High unemployment rates

Video notes:

• She uses American English → meant for an American public
• First female PM: female leader → first step towards normalization
• Iron Lady: strong, inflexible, difficult to bend, gender expectations (lady) → she's different from all the expectations
• Seen as an outsider
• One of the most powerful politicians on earth
• She used a typically male approach, even on the way she dressed (not really feminine) → attire that downplayed femininity
• Connection between the English and the American politics: politics had become not a global thing but the western world had Nations that influenced one another (language!!!)
• Kind of style and program carried out by Thatcher → similar to what Reagan did in the USA: same narratives and discursive features
• Personalisation of the political style: Thatcher → Iron Lady; Reagan → Hollywood actor

Thatcher discourse:

• Economic models mentioned by Thatcher: Capitalism (free market) and Marxism (state-controlled economy) → she sustains Capitalism
• Models she sustains and her justification: incompatibility between socialism and Britishness
  • Capitalism = prosperity and happiness
  • Nationalization and control are the opposite of a flourishing country
• Britishness → creativity and enterprise
• The socialist conception of equality coincides with the notion of identity

Thatcher's legacy (video)

• When Thatcher became PM, Britain was considered the 'sick man' of Europe
• In Thatcher's opinion one of the greatest debates of her time is how much people's money should be spent by the state and how much people should keep to spend on their families
• Both Thatcher and Reagan were supporters of the free market

Persuasion models:

1. By Comparison
   • Us vs them
2. By Problem/Solution
3. By Authority
   • People defer to experts and are more likely to accept a suggestion if it's backed up by authority
   • Scientists, industry bodies, newspapers or trade journals, government studies, reports, surveys, statistics, INFLUENCERS!!
   • Look for an impartial authority to back up your sales message
4. By Association
   • Persuasion in a non-explicit way: link a product with a specific concept (e.g., Mulino Bianco → family)
   • Create a strong emotional response and therefore associate that feeling with a brand → EMOTIONAL TRANSFER

Movie "The Iron Lady" - The Cabinet clip

• Thatcher maintains that the poor and the rich have to pay the same amount of taxes so that everybody cares about collective problems and feel involved
• Thatcher comes from the lower middle class.
• The members of her class think that those who live on welfare money are 'slackers' that take and contribute nothing to the community
• She's fiercely against the European Union as it would limit Britain's sovereignty
• In this clip she appears to be aggressive, despotic and unable to discuss issues even with her Cabinet
• She's the only woman, the only one of the lower middle class who climbed the social ladder by studying and working harder than anyone else in that Cabinet
• The rich can commit mistakes, the lower class (Thatcher) MUST NOT make mistakes

The New Labour

New Left:

1. Bill Clinton → USA
2. Tony Blair → UK
3. Romano Prodi → ITA
4. Schroeder → DE
5. Lionel Jospin → FR

1980's: decade of optimism: idea that making money was no longer to be considered to be ashamed of (Thatcher and Reagan) → Madonna: poor woman, child of Italian immigrants, one of the most powerful figure in the music history = Thatcher → Michael Jackson: came from a very poor black family → optimism that even if you live in a poor condition, if you work hard you can reach the top: positive view of these politicians.

American Dream: through hard work you can improve your status and eventually buy your own place to live in with your family → Self-made man.

1990's: decade of pessimism: grunge, darker music bands who were against the American Dream (looks, music...) → society was unfair towards the weak, you could not improve your situation even when working hard.

• Revolution in the market context (clothes, music...)
• Started looking at Britain because the atmosphere was gloomy, darker
  • Rebel against the establishment, the society
• USA: people started rebelling against the Vietnam War
• EU: fight for the rights of women
• Emphasis of the young element: idea of Revolution and Modernisation → young people = modernity

Tony Blair and Bill Clinton → right men at the right time: young physical appearance influenced their elections.

Tony Blair wanted to appear as a Moderniser: he understood the importance of the figure of Lady Diana, who was a symbol for young people