Riassunto esame di Linguistica Inglese, prof.ssa Maggioni, testo consigliato Aspects of Discourse and Genre, Ulrych

Aspects of discourse and genre

Introduction

The English Linguistics course will take a functional approach to language within the general framework of socio-systemic linguistics. This approach to linguistics involves interpreting language as a system of meanings accompanied by forms through which the meanings can be realised in context. The notion of context is fundamental to language as communication takes place not in isolation but in relation to events, actions and participants. Using language also implies a continual choice among the various linguistic options offered by the system.

Discourse, used as a general term, refers to modes of communication in context, which include the use of spoken, written, and sign language as well as multimodal and multimedia forms. The term may be qualified to denote more specific areas of use (e.g., economic discourse, legal discourse, medical discourse, political discourse) or to distinguish between spoken and written languages (i.e., spoken discourse, written discourse) or to indicate combinations of these, such as, for instance, spoken medical discourse.

A discourse community has been described as a group of people involved in a common task or event and the language they use to accomplish it. Since the language that is used is made up of sequences of regularly occurring linguistic patterns, it can be easily recognised within the discourse community. Obviously, people can be members of different discourse communities at different times and thus be involved in various types of language use.

1 – A functional approach to language

The study of linguistics is concerned with the nature of language and has traditionally concentrated on “language as knowledge” or “what the speaker knows.” This way of looking at language Halliday has called an intra-organism approach, and it is concerned with the brain’s capacity to store language and to use it effectively in communication. It is therefore primarily a psycholinguistic approach to language. There has, however, been a growing awareness that language is essentially a social activity and emphasis has been placed on “what the speaker does” and “language as doing.” In other words, we use language according to who we are and what we are doing, in the sense of the socio-cultural activity we are engaged in. This view provides an inter-organism perspective on language as purposeful behaviour and is essentially a sociolinguistic approach. The various meaningful functions that language performs are studied in relation to the individual within a social context. Identity, as well as communication, are therefore essential factors in the sociolinguistic approach. Rather than being concerned with language in an abstract sense, it takes into account how language is actually used in authentic contexts.

Although the two orientations are complementary and virtually inseparable, the sociolinguistic, inter-organism approach in particular has led to interesting and innovative ways of looking at language and communication, leading to profound changes in linguistic description and language change. The way language users segment and sequence their discourse therefore depends on the textual and situational context.

1. Language functions

When we talk about the functions of language we mean the way people use language to achieve different aims and purposes. If communication is to be effective, the participants must be sure that not only the surface structure of what is being said but also the underlying force of the utterance is transmitted and interpreted correctly and appropriately by the receiver.

We can carry out different activities through language: we can agree, disagree, assert, blame, condemn, deny, explain, promise, question, request, warn, etc. The ability of sentences to perform actions was first investigated by Austin. He noted how all utterances have some communicative force in addition to conveying meaning. Austin distinguished three kinds of acts that can be performed by an utterance:

• Locution: The formal, literal meaning of a well-formed, meaningful utterance;
• Illocution: The communicative force which accompanies the utterance and is the act which is performed by it;
• Perlocution: The overall effect of the utterance on the actions, thoughts, or beliefs of the addressee (hearer or reader).

The three acts together make up a speech act, and a text is made up of a concatenation of speech acts, one influencing the other. Functions are sometimes referred to as microfunctions to distinguish them from those that encompass larger stretches of discourse, the macrofunctions. The distinction is as important to translation as it is to communication in general. It is too simplistic to assume that language serves merely to communicate thoughts or ideas. Although it is true that all language is to a great extent informative, that is, it has a referential function; it also serves other important purposes.

2. Functions of language: Jakobson

The most characteristic feature of the functional theories of the Prague School of Linguistics was the combination of the central notion that language was to be seen as an ultimately coherent structure, not as an aggregate of isolated entities with a recognition and analyses of the variety of functions that it fulfills in society.

A number of different labels have been given to these six functions:

• The cognitive or referential function of language operates when it is used for the transmission of information. It is oriented towards the context and the referent;
• The expressive or emotive function is seen when the language is used to indicate the mood or attitude of the speaker, or the writer;
• The conative function is involved when it is used to influence the behaviour of the person to whom it is addressed;
• The poetic or aesthetic function manifests itself in the form of an utterance (its sound and shape). It is to be found in all types of discourse (advertising slogans), in poetry it is generally combined with other functions (e.g., emotive in the lyric, referential in the epic, conative in poetry with a social, ethic, or moral principle);
• The phatic function is oriented towards the contact (the channel) between addresser and addressee. Language is used to open the channel of communication, maintain contact and close it, also to attract or confirm attention;
• The metalingual function focuses on the code or language.

Other functions can be derived from these:

• Imaginary function is part of the referential function regarding imaginary context;
• Magic or incantatory function: in which “an absent or inanimate ‘third person’” of the referential function becomes “an addressee of a conative message”;
• Supplicatory or exhortative function is part of the conative function depending on whether the first person is subordinated to the second or the second to the first.

Each piece of the discourse will express one dominant function of a piece of discourse.

3. Metafunctions of language: Halliday

The fundamental components of meaning in language are functional components. Language is as it is because of what it has to do. However, language is characterised by diversity of use, with a speaker using language in any given utterance for a variety of purposes. One can identify a certain number of what Halliday has termed metafunctions (semantic macro-functions). These are only indirectly related to specific uses of language but are nevertheless recognisable as abstract representations of the basic functions which language is made to serve. These generalised functions of language define the total meaning potential of the adult language system.

According to Halliday, all languages are organised around two main kinds of meaning, the ideational or reflective and the interpersonal. These components, or metafunctions, are the manifestations in the linguistic system of the two very general purposes which underlie all uses of the language:

• To understand the environment: Language has a referential function; it names and describes things in the environment (ideational). This is language for information: i.e., learning and thinking with language. It is also language as “content” and represents the speaker’s meaning potential as an observer. The ideational metafunction corresponds closely to Bühler’s representational function;
• To act on others in the environment (interpersonal): Our interpersonal exchange (acting with language). This is language as “inter-action” and represents the speaker’s meaning potential as an intruder in the context of the situation, both expressing his or her own attitudes and judgements and seeking to influence the attitudes and behaviour of others. The interpersonal metafunction corresponds more or less to Bühler’s conative and expressive functions.

Language has its own way of doing things and relating to the rest of our behaviour. This is language as “texture” and represents the speaker’s text-forming potential: it expresses the relation of the language to its environment, including both the verbal environment and the situational environment.

The ideation function is represented by transitivity (the way different types of process of the external world are interpreted and expressed). The interpersonal function is represented by mood (the selections by the speaker of a particular role in the speech situation and his determination of the choice of roles for the addressee) and modality, (the expression of the speaker’s judgements and predictions). The textual function is represented by theme structures, which express the organization of the message: how a clause relates to the surrounding discourse, and to the context of the situation in which it is being produced.

The metafunctional hypothesis postulates that in all languages the content systems are organised into ideational, interpersonal and textual components. This is presented as a universal feature of language. But the descriptive categories are treated as particular. So while all languages are assumed to have a “textual” component, whereby discourse achieves a texture that relates it to its environment, it is not assumed that in any given language one of the ways of achieving texture will be by means of a thematic system. Even if there is such a system, the features in it (the choices) may not be the same; and even if a feature embodies the same choice, it may not be realised in the same way.

The functional-semantic approach therefore views language as a resource for making meaning and attempts to describe language in actual use, focusing on texts and contexts. The concern of the functional approach is not only with structures but also with how those structures construct meaning.

There are four main theoretical claims about language. The first is that language use is functional, the second, that its function is to make meanings, the third, that these meanings are influenced by the social and cultural context in which the exchange takes place; and lastly, that the communication involves choosing some linguistic items and discarding others, and as such it is a semiotic process. If we take all these four points together, we see that language use is functional, semantic, contextual, and semiotic, and this is why the approach we are adopting in the English linguistics course can be called functional-semantic. A basic premise of this approach is that language is a purposeful activity. This means that people use language to achieve a goal. People also use language to interact and then do so to make meanings. The overall purpose of language, therefore is a semantic one, since people communicate meanings.

Text, context and genre: socio-cultural aspects of English

1. Language as a social activity

Language is a meaning potential in that it centres on what the speaker can do or mean. Language also functions in some environment. We experience language not in isolation but always in relation to a social setting that is made up of people, action, and events. This social settings, or immediate environment, in which language functions is, for Halliday, the “context of situation.” The topic under discussion and the background and experience of the speakers would be more relevant as features of the interaction than the immediate surroundings or objects or event.

Many of these ideas were first developed by John Rupert Firth, who views linguistic behaviour as a network of relations between people, things and events. He also sees language as a mode of action. Language is thus a way of doing things and getting things done, of behaving and making others behave in relation to surroundings and situations. According to Firth, a normal complete act of speech is a pattern of group behaviour, of common verbalisations and speech behaviour is determined by typical recurrent social situations. Firth therefore places importance on both situational and cultural contexts.

2. Context: co-text and context of situation

Initially, the term context was used exclusively to refer to the words and sentences that go with a text, con-text in the strict sense of the word. A text is a complex entity consisting of more than a sum of its parts as it is made up of a web of interdependent relationships, which confer meaning on each other and can only be interpreted in relation to each other. The co-text therefore refers to a text’s linguistic context.

Contextual features are also to be found in what goes on in the total environment beyond the physical realisation of language. We can therefore distinguish between the co-text, the linguistic context, and the context of the situation, the extra linguistic one. Context is a source of meaning for every language event since it gives the hearer or reader a frame of reference within which to interpret what has been uttered or written.