Register and the redemption of relevance theory

Pragmatics ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Goatly
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Relevance Theory ◽  
Genre Theory ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Linguistic Pragmatics ◽  
The Third ◽  
Cross Fertilization

The argument I wish to advance in this paper is that Gricean theory (Grice 1968, 1969, 1975, 1978, 1981) and, in particular, the potentially useful relevance theory which developed from it (Sperber & Wilson 1986), are flawed through their failure to consider cultural and social context; but that attempts to relate linguistic pragmatics to more socially-conscious models of language use, such as register/genre theory (Ure and Ellis 1977; Halliday 1978; Gregory and Carroll 1978; Ghadessy 1988, 1993; Swales 1988; Martin 1985, 1992 etc.) may produce interesting cross-fertilization and be beneficial to both. This essay falls into three sections. The first is a brief introductory critique of Grice's theory as an asocial idealized construct. The second section brings relevance theory and genre/register theory face to face and under the spotlight, hoping to reveal the weaknesses of each and show how, theoretically, they could compensate for and complement each other. In the third section I consider the case of metaphor, arguing that and demonstrating how the account of metaphor provided in Relevance: Communication and Cognition can be supplemented in practice by considering the kinds of register/genre in which metaphors find expression.

scholarly journals SOCIOLINGUISTIC APPROACHES TO SLA

1999 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 105-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Young
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Social Phenomenon ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Face To Face

The study of second language acquisition involves understanding what bilinguals know about their second language and how they acquire and use it. Because acquisition and use occur in a social context, it is important for second–language acquisition researchers to understand the ways in which social context and the acquisition and use of a second language are related. In recent years, our understanding of language as a social phenomenon has increased greatly. In a recent survey of sociolinguistics and language teaching, McKay and Hornberger (1996) divide the field into four related areas: 1) studies of language and society–how large–scale social and political issues affect language use in a particular society, 2) studies of language variation—how the “same” language varies from speaker to speaker, from place to place, and from situation to situation, 3) studies of language and interaction—how language is used in face–to–face communication, and 4) studies of language and culture—how particular cultures privilege some kinds of language over others.

Forced migration and psychosocial health: meaning-making through autobiographical narratives in the UK

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Psoinos
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Forced Migration ◽  
Psychosocial Health ◽  
Autobiographical Narratives ◽  
Narrative Interviews ◽  
Negative Stereotypes ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Autobiographical Narrative

This paper explores how refugees in the UK perceive the relation between their experience of migration and their psychosocial health. Autobiographical narrative interviews were carried out with fifteen refugees residing in the UK. The findings reveal a contrast between the negative stereotypes concerning refugees’ psychosocial health and the participants’ own perceptions. Two of the three emerging narratives suggest a more balanced view of refugees’ psychosocial health, since- in contrast to the stereotypes- most participants did not perceive this through the lens of ‘vulnerability’. The third narrative revealed that a hostile social context can negatively shape refugees’ perceptions of their psychosocial health. This runs counter to the stereotype of refugees as being exclusively responsible for their ‘passiveness’ and therefore for the problems they face. 

Māori Research(er) in Three Poems

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 35
Author(s):  
Jacquie Kidd
Keyword(s):  
Palliative Care ◽  
Health Literacy ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Focus Groups ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Bell Hooks ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The Third ◽  
Ruth Behar ◽  
Seeking Help

These three poems re-present the findings from a research project that took place in 2013 (Kidd et al. 2018, Kidd et al. 2014). The research explored what health literacy meant for Māori patients and whānau when they accessed palliative care. Through face-to-face interviews and focus groups we engaged with 81 people including patients, whānau, bereaved loved ones, support workers and health professionals. The poems are composite, written to bring some of our themes to life. The first poem is titled Aue. This is a Māori lament that aligns to English words such as ‘oh no’, or ‘arrgh’, or ‘awww’. Each stanza of the poem re-presents some of the stories we heard throughout the research. The second poem is called Tikanga. This is a Māori concept that encompasses customs, traditions and protocols. There are tikanga rituals and processes that guide all aspects of life, death, and relationships. This poem was inspired by an elderly man who explained that he would avoid seeking help from a hospice because ‘they leave tikanga at the door at those places’. His choice was to bear his pain bravely, with pride, within his cultural identity. The third poem is called ‘People Like Me’. This is an autoethnographical reflection of what I experienced as a researcher which draws on the work of scholars such as bell hooks (1984), Laurel Richardson (1997) and Ruth Behar (1996). These and many other authors encourage researchers to use frustration and anger to inform our writing; to use our tears to fuel our need to publish our research.

Reading Beyond the Code

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Relevance Theory ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Communicative Acts ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Code Model ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Central Claim

This book explores the value for literary studies of relevance theory, an inferential approach to communication in which the expression and recognition of intentions plays a major role. Drawing on a wide range of examples from lyric poetry and the novel, nine of the ten chapters are written by literary specialists and use relevance theory both as an overall framework and as a resource for detailed analysis. The final chapter, written by the co-founder of relevance theory, reviews the issues addressed by the volume and explores their implications for cognitive theories of how communicative acts are interpreted in context. Originally designed to explain how people understand each other in everyday face-to-face exchanges, relevance theory—described in an early review by a literary scholar as ‘the makings of a radically new theory of communication, the first since Aristotle’s’—sheds light on the whole spectrum of human modes of communication, including literature in the broadest sense. Reading Beyond the Code is unique in using relevance theory as a prime resource for literary study, and is also the first to apply the model to a range of phenomena widely seen as supporting an ‘embodied’ conception of cognition and language where sensorimotor processes play a key role. This broadened perspective serves to enhance the value for literary studies of the central claim of relevance theory: that the ‘code model’ is fundamentally inadequate to account for human communication, and in particular for the modes of communication that are proper to literature.

Carthage after the Punic Wars and the Neo-Punic Legacy

2019 ◽  
pp. 182-196
Author(s):  
Matthew Hobson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Cultural Development ◽  
Initial Examination ◽  
The Third ◽  
Funerary Rituals ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Punic Wars

This chapter provides a brief introduction to how the historiographical development of Roman studies, since mid-twentieth century decolonization, has altered our understanding of the developments which took place in North Africa following the destruction of Carthage in 146 bce. The reader is introduced to literary, epigraphic, and archaeological sources of evidence, which have traditionally been used to argue for either cultural change or continuity. After an initial examination of the immediate aftermath of the Third Punic War, Roman land appropriation and taxation, the focus is on sources of evidence usually described as “Punic,” “neo-Punic” or “Late Punic,” covering the spheres of municipal institutions, language use, and religious and funerary rituals. The vibrant multiculturalism and regional diversity of the Mediterranean and especially North Africa, both before and after the Roman conquest, is the dominant theme. This is used to shift emphasis away from grand explanatory paradigms based on essentialist identity categories, and toward a more nuanced picture of the complex and multivariate processes of cultural development and integration.

scholarly journals The switching mechanisms of social network densification

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Teruyoshi Kobayashi ◽  
Mathieu Génois
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Regime Switching ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The Social ◽  
Switching Property ◽  
Distinctive Type ◽  
Insight Into

AbstractDensification and sparsification of social networks are attributed to two fundamental mechanisms: a change in the population in the system, and/or a change in the chances that people in the system are connected. In theory, each of these mechanisms generates a distinctive type of densification scaling, but in reality both types are generally mixed. Here, we develop a Bayesian statistical method to identify the extent to which each of these mechanisms is at play at a given point in time, taking the mixed densification scaling as input. We apply the method to networks of face-to-face interactions of individuals and reveal that the main mechanism that causes densification and sparsification occasionally switches, the frequency of which depending on the social context. The proposed method uncovers an inherent regime-switching property of network dynamics, which will provide a new insight into the mechanics behind evolving social interactions.

scholarly journals Speakers exhibit a multimodal Lombard effect in noise

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
James Trujillo ◽  
Asli Özyürek ◽  
Judith Holler ◽  
Linda Drijvers
Keyword(s):  
Motion Capture ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Visual Channel ◽  
Lombard Effect ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Acoustic Analyses ◽  
Acoustic Modulation ◽  
Action Verbs

AbstractIn everyday conversation, we are often challenged with communicating in non-ideal settings, such as in noise. Increased speech intensity and larger mouth movements are used to overcome noise in constrained settings (the Lombard effect). How we adapt to noise in face-to-face interaction, the natural environment of human language use, where manual gestures are ubiquitous, is currently unknown. We asked Dutch adults to wear headphones with varying levels of multi-talker babble while attempting to communicate action verbs to one another. Using quantitative motion capture and acoustic analyses, we found that (1) noise is associated with increased speech intensity and enhanced gesture kinematics and mouth movements, and (2) acoustic modulation only occurs when gestures are not present, while kinematic modulation occurs regardless of co-occurring speech. Thus, in face-to-face encounters the Lombard effect is not constrained to speech but is a multimodal phenomenon where the visual channel carries most of the communicative burden.

scholarly journals PELAKSANAAN PEMBELAJARAN SENI DRAMA SEJAK USIA DINI

Imaji ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sumaryadi
Keyword(s):  
Art Education ◽  
Visual Arts ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Conflict Setting ◽  
Technical Staff ◽  
The Third ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Art Performance

Regarding the implementation of art education in schools, it is seen that art performance education is put in the third position after visual arts and literature. Among other forms of art performance, drama’s position is under music and dance. Drama is a performance delineating human life, which is acted on stage in front of public. The story generally has conflicts, performed through movements, actions and dialogs. Drama needs introducing to children. The attempts to introduce drama to children should be done as early as possible since the early ages have appropriate space and time, which are strategic to implant basic values in children. Related to this, there are at least two things to be put into consideration. The first is related to literature and the second to art performance. The former covers the determination of theme, synopsis, characters and characterization, plot, dramatic conflict, setting and language use. The latter includes script writing, directing, producer, technical staff, players, and audience. Keywords: art education, drama, early ages

scholarly journals Speech Acts

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen C. Levinson
Keyword(s):  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Linguistic Pragmatics ◽  
Recursive Structures ◽  
Core Language ◽  
Core Issues ◽  
Essential Insight

The essential insight of speech act theory was that when we use language, we perform actions—in a more modern parlance, core language use in interaction is a form of joint action. Over the last thirty years, speech acts have been relatively neglected in linguistic pragmatics, although important work has been done especially in conversation analysis. Here we review the core issues—the identifying characteristics, the degree of universality, the problem of multiple functions, and the puzzle of speech act recognition. Special attention is drawn to the role of conversation structure, probabilistic linguistic cues, and plan or sequence inference in speech act recognition, and to the centrality of deep recursive structures in sequences of speech acts in conversation.

Relevance Theory and Mediated Mass-Communication

2020 ◽  
pp. 99-116
Author(s):  
Charles Forceville
Keyword(s):  
Mass Communication ◽  
Background Knowledge ◽  
Relevance Theory ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Cognitive Environment ◽  
Ideological Assumptions

The examples analyzed in classic RT pertain to face-to-face communication, that is, a situation in which one communicator speaks to a single addressee standing next to her. The shift from this situation to mass-communication affects several dimensions of RT. In this chapter, the central RT tenet that relevance is always relevance to an individual is discussed in light of the fact that mass-communicative audiences consist of (very) many individuals. Concepts affected pertain to the recognition and fulfillment of the communicative and informative intention and to the cognitive environment (≈ background knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, etc.) of the numerous individuals in the envisaged audience, who after all may not share the ideological assumptions of the communicator. Moreover, mass-communication is usually mediated. Some of the technical, financial, institutional, and ideological consequences of mediated mass-communication for RT are sketched.

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