Esame Lingua Inglese, prof. Sala

What's language?

Every human activity is based on language, which is used to transmit information about:

• Real/empirical world (hard sciences) → what we see in the world;
• Perceived world (social sciences, politics, media discourse, etc.) → our interpretation of the world;
• Desire (literature, politics, everyday speech, etc.) → to create and construct the reality of the world;
• Meta-language → when language itself is being discussed or examined.

What is language?

Language is a symbolic system with several functions (inform, express, direct, etc.).

Why is language a symbolic system?

What is a symbol? Things that stand for other things → We use words that stand for other things. When I use the word “bunny“, I don’t pay attention to the word itself, but I focus on the idea I have of a bunny. However, the image you have in your mind is not always the same as mine, which is also why misunderstanding exists.

When we say a word, it stands for a given referent, but at the same time it activates a concept: communication starts when the concept relates to the referent.

Language as an abstraction

We communicate through mental abstraction, which is socially agreed upon, tacitly accepted, and recognizable. Process: selection → definition → simplification → singling out. The same idea could be expressed through different words: sometimes we use the words to define (not just to explain) reality. But sometimes it is impossible to explain something, so we use simplifications, like a single word that is very general. For example, he is a man; London is a great city. (What is the real meaning of these sentences? What do we mean by “great?” Beautiful, big, fantastic? But we understand anyway what our interlocutor wants to say.)

We can use language to interpret reality. Through language we create a concept; when we talk, we’re referring to the concept rather than reality. We don't learn a language, but we learn labels used by it. We perceive reality through language.

Levels of reality

Reality can be distinguished into five different levels, and three of them couldn’t be possible without language.

Pre-verbal abstraction

• Event/Process level: the scientific level, where we cannot experience it directly: words like protons, electrons...
• Object/Experience level: to perceive and recognize objects. We recognize things because we see them (this is what we have in common with animals), even without using language. If I’m sad, I don’t need to say that I’m not okay.

Verbal abstraction

The reality that is presented through language, so we represent it and interpret it (the reality).

• Descriptive level: when we give a name to define things. What is the difference between a hill and a mountain? We don’t perceive it; we interpret things thanks to the label/definition we give to them through language.
• Inference level: since we have language, we can use it to make suppositions: we can get to the point of finding the conclusion and explanation of something. We can make hypotheses using our experience. Ex. Jack isn’t here. He must be late. The only thing we know is that he’s not here, but by using language, we can say that probably he’s late.
• Generalization level: we’re in the field of super abstraction (things that evoke a concept that does not correspond to reality). Most of the time, it is subjective. Ex. Maradona is the best football player in the world. We can say it, but how do we measure the skills? It’s not like saying he’s the tallest (even though, to say it, we should compare every single person on this planet).

Developing meanings

We develop meanings through recognizability, given by two factors:

• Word-internal factors:
  • Form: for example, we recognize a 3rd person verb because it has the -s; adverbs end with -ly, etc.
  • Logical order of elements: if it is after the subject, it must be a verb.
  • Onomatopoeia.
• Social agreement: through context, experience, and common ground, we understand the meaning. You know the meaning of the sentence I said because I’ve used it in that specific context. If said in another one, it could have had a different meaning. Ex: this was really cool! (literally means fresh, but in context means great). This is really insane! (insane means crazy, but in most cases, it has a positive connotation.)

The context

The context is the physical and social world: context outside the text.

• Situational context: the immediate physical co-presence; the situation where the interaction is taking place at the moment of the speaking. Situational context is what the speaker knows about what they can see around them. In a common situation, a signal of situational context is the use of this or that to identify an object, or the use of pictures in a story, to add a visible context.
• Background knowledge context: what the speakers know about each other and the world, so it is the general knowledge that most people carry with them in their minds.
  • Cultural background knowledge: when interlocutors establish that they are part of the same group, they can assume mutual knowledge of everything normally known by group members (areas of their life, special lexis or vocabulary).
  • Shared interpersonal knowledge: knowledge acquired through previous verbal interaction or joint activities and experiences. In other words, it is shared knowledge between me and my interlocutor (about private things, our history, etc.), often it is something we take for granted. When we hear two guys talking about something and these two share a big interpersonal knowledge, any reference to any part of it can be so vague, implicit, and minimal.

Context inside the text

• Co-text context: represented by the text itself. It is what allows us to connect parts that seem to be independent of one another.
• Why is the context relevant? We need context to interpret any text because it is full of co-textual references, which point to elements already introduced in the text or previously known by the speakers. The linguistic form used by the speaker to enable the interlocutor to identify the identity being referred to (referent) is known as a referring expression. The reference is the act of using language to refer to entities in the context, so as to identify something. There are two types of reference: exophoric – referring to the context outside – and endophoric – referring to the context inside.

Exophora and deixis

Exophora is when the referring expression is in the first mention of the referent. So there’s no previous mention, and it is dependent on the situational or background knowledge context for example when a speaker names a person, this name refers to background knowledge; it is a name that has not been mentioned before, or also when we use this, that, we’re referring to something in the situational context.

Deixis (exophora): words that point to the entity they refer to.

• Person deixis: all the elements referring to a person in relation to the context of the speech (personal pronouns; neither, either, both…)
• Place/spatial deixis: demonstrative adverbs (there, here) demonstrative adjectives (this, that, these, those, etc.)
• Time deixis: expressions used to point to a time in relation to the moment of the speech as in next day; then; now; tomorrow, yesterday, before, afterwards, until…
• Tense and aspect deixis: to express a range of temporal meanings in relation to the present time when we use the simple present to talk about past events (historical present).

Intertextuality and endophora

Intertextuality is when a referring expression points to another text, so to something that has been already mentioned – in this case, the text becomes a part of the background knowledge (in the majority of cases it is interpersonal).

Endophora is when a referring expression links with another referring expression within the co-text; we say that it is cohesive with the previous mention of the referent in the text. This is what meshes the texts together. Endophora avoids unnecessary repetition.

• Anaphora: (it is the most frequent) pointing to a referent already mentioned in the preceding text: when a pronoun links back to something that went before in the preceding text. I really love my dog. I will miss it when… it refers to the dog.
• Cataphora: the opposite of anaphora, pointing to a referent mentioned in the following text. It is often used to create suspense, in order to catch the attention of the reader up to the end. When a pronoun links forward to a referent in the text that follows. I really love it, when the dog…
• Associate endophora: when noun phrases are not linked explicitly, but one noun phrase is linked to entities simply associated with another noun phrase. It’s halfway between endophora and exophora because it depends on knowledge of what went before or after the same text and also on background knowledge of cultural or interpersonal context.

Endophoric reference is one of the grammatical cohesion, but there are also two other forms that are not part of reference: substitution and ellipsis. Just like substitutions, it avoids repetition and depends on the hearer’s/reader’s ability to retrieve the missing words from the context. They occur more often in conversation than in written text because conversation tends to be less explicit. If my dog died, I wouldn’t want another: here the speaker avoids the repetition of the word dog and replaces it with nothing.

Lexical cohesion

There are some variations of repetition that allow us to avoid repeating the exact word:

• Synonym: it is a word that has the same meaning as the one we’re going to substitute.
• Superordinate: it is an umbrella term, called so because they can cover more than one meaning. I love my dog. The animal… (a dog is an animal, but an animal is also a cat, fish, etc.)

Another type of lexical cohesion is the general word; it can be a general noun, such as stuff, thing, place, person, or general verbs (do, happen…). The general word is the highest level of superordinate.

Conversation

When we communicate, anything we say is influenced by things that were said/done before, and our words are going to influence the future. Conversation is the place where we use language (so it does not exist in isolation).

There are two ways of looking at the structure of discourse: the exchange structure – ET, which studies patterns of classroom interaction – and conversation analysis – CA, which examines the turn-taking mechanism, the way what speakers say dictates the type of answer expected, etc.

Exchange structure

Exchange structure approaches conversation as a product of predetermined sequences, offering tools to define chunks of text according to their function. Conversation analysis approaches conversation as a free-form process, offering tools to analyze the organization of conversation.

Exchange structure was introduced in 1975 by Sinclair and Coulthard. Since it is typical of classroom interaction, there is an unequal power balance: the teacher controls the student’s actions with his/her directives. Some examples of ET in a different background than the classroom are doctor-patient talks or TV quiz shows.

According to ES, conversation tends to be carried out in a fixed order of moves. There are five levels, from a low to a high level of abstraction:

• Act: We have:
  • Initiation act: to open a conversation.
  • Response act: to respond to the initiation.
  • Fillers: lack of semantic content. They don’t have a specific function, are used to avoid silence (You know, I mean...)
  • Acknowledge function: Feedbacks or backchannels to provide some feedback to the speaker; you use them to look interested or to prove that you understand (Was it? Oh really?)
  • Evaluative function: to evaluate the hearer’s answer; to express your judgment. They have pretty much the same function as backchannels (Good!; Interesting)
  • Discourse markers: to mark the boundary between ideas or topics; they are simply discourse markers, so they don’t have a real function (Well; ok; alright...)
• IRF moves: (a fixed order of acts)
  • Initiation: can have different pragmatic functions
    • Inform: give information
    • Direct: give orders (open your book at page…)
    • Elicit: request a response (Who wrote the novel…)
    • Nominate: name responder, when your start saying the name (Paul?..)
    • Check: check the progress (Is it clear; finished? If I ask, I just want you to say yes or no).
    • Cue: encourage the hearer to contribute (Any volunteers?)
    • Prompt: reinforce directives (go ahead; you have 5 min left, hurry up!)
  • Response: can be a physical reaction (so I don’t use language) or acknowledge, so a simple reply (that implies the use of words)
  • Follow up: it is a comment made by the first who started the conversation – in the case of the classroom, it is the teacher’s comment on the pupil’s answer. Now the conversation begins.
    • To accept: signal she has received the information (Ok; Yes; fine…)
    • To evaluate: to evaluate the interlocutor’s/pupil’s answer, so you judge (Good; interesting; right..)
• Exchange: An exchange is made by IRF related to a single (micro) topic. Simple exchanges may coincide with an IRF move.
• Transaction: Cluster of situationally/pragmatically related exchanges form a transaction. An example can be the teacher’s explanation of the test or the moment of the roll call.
• Speech event: all the things we’ve seen before combined. It is typical of a class in the American and English sense: students talk to teachers, they don’t just listen and write. The Italian class, instead, is totally different: in class, you accept everything is said by the teacher, she explains, and the students take notes. It is not a real conversation.

Limitation of Exchange structure: It works only in contexts with:

• Asymmetrical power relationship: one handles all the questioning; the hearer has the role of providing answers (applicable in contexts like doctor-patient interaction, quiz shows, interviews, etc.)
• Task-oriented: not a free exchange. You talk with the teacher because she/he wants to verify your competencies (it doesn’t exist in conversations of everyday life).
• It handles a large number of participants but with predetermined roles (in the case of the teacher’s explanation, the number of students is irrelevant).

Conversation analysis

Conversation analysis implies the negotiation of cooperation between speakers. It is different from ES first of all because it takes real data and then examines language and demonstrates that it is structured. Conversation is usually informal and unplanned. A talk can be considered as a conversation when:

• The number of participants is small
• Participants have equal power
• Turns are short
• Talk is primarily for the participants and not for an outside audience, so CA assumes that only speakers take turns: first one talking, then another.