No subject

Jiansheng Guo Jiansheng.Guo at VUW.AC.NZ
Thu Jun 5 05:53:12 UTC 1997


Dear Colleagues,

A couple of weeks ago, I was inquring about the references and insights on
the discourse functions of using personal names in face-to-face interactions.
I got a lot of enthusiastic and very helpful feedbacks and comments.  I would
like to particularly thank the following person for their kindness in helping
me.  A summary of the comments follows.

---------
Nancy Budwig
Department of Psychology                Phone:  508-793-7250
Clark University                        FAX:    508-793-7780
Worcester, MA  01610                    Time:   GMT  - 5:00
USA                                     Email:  nbudwig at vax.clarku.edu
---------

Kevin Durkin
Department of Psychology
The University of Western Australia
---------

Gina Conti-Ramsden
---------

Patricia Clancy
Linguistics Dept.
University of California, Santa Barbara
---------

Keiko Nakamura
Psychology Dept.
University of California, Berkeley
---------

Sandy Thompson
Linguistics Dept.
Univerisity of California, Santa Barbara
---------

Susan Ervin-Tripp
Psychology Dept.
University of California, Berkeley
---------

Richard (=Dick) Hudson
Department of Phonetics and Linguistics,
University College London,
---------


Lise Menn
Linguistics Dept.
CU Boulder
---------


Anat Ninio
---------


Rebecca.Sun
University of CIncinnati
Cincinnati, Ohio
---------


Michelina P. Bonanno, Ph.D.           <bonannom at gusun.georgetown.edu>
Georgetown University                  phone: (202) 687-5998
Washington, D.C. 20057, USA
---------


Pamela Downing                          Office: (414) 229-4533
Dept. of English & Comp Lit             Message: (414) 229-4511
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee       Home: (414) 453-4480
---------

Jonathan Evans
University of California, Berkeley
---------

Jean Berko Gleason
Psychology Department
Boston University
---------

Emanuel A. Schegloff
University of California, Los Angeles
---------

Shoshana Blum-Kulka
---------

I.      Guo's brief summary:
===============================

The following comments or references seem to come from three directions of
research on use of personal names.

1.      Study of personal names as vocatives addressing the addressee, carrying
        interactive-interpersonal messages: softening or strenthen the
        tone, indicating the speaker's stance in relation to the addressee,
        etc.

        Within this direction, studies also have tried to find out who are more
        likely to use voocatives and in what situations and contexts.

2.      Study of personal names as address terms, focusing on the
        sociolinguistic variations of address terms, and the related practices
        in different cultures.

3.      Study of personal names as third person referents, examining the
        cognitive and informational motivations for using proper names vs.
        pronouns (or other ways of referrring) in conversations.

Before, I was thinking about Direction (1) in working on my data from 5 year old
children's talk in play.  But now it seems that several things may be happening
and I may have to tease out the different types of uses of names.

When children's attention is not there, then names can be used as an attention
getter, which is similar to (3) (though this is second person reference).  If
children use names as an expression of frustration, anger, or excitement, then
it is (1).  But when they use names as a personalizer (e.g., in appeals), it
is somewhere in between (1) and (2) (similar to the sociolinguistic use of
different address terms to express interpersonal stance, e.g., first name vs.
title + last name).  So even though there is little variation in form (they
basically use first names), (2) comes into the picture with respect to my
interest.

I'm still trying to get a good handle over this and also try to find a good way
to operationalize the definitions and classifications.  So you have any further
insights, I would be very interested in hearing them.

But anyway, the following is the summary of all the comments I received so far.

Many thanks.

All my best,

Guo
====================================================================


II.     Summary of the original comments
===========================================



Nancy Budwig
Department of Psychology                Phone:  508-793-7250
Clark University                        FAX:    508-793-7780
Worcester, MA  01610                    Time:   GMT  - 5:00
USA                                     Email:  nbudwig at vax.clarku.edu
=================================================
I analyzd use of names by
the children studied in my book *A developmental-functionalist approach to
child language* and have also worked with my colleague Nandita Chaudhary a
bit on them in Hindi-speaking mother+s discourse.
The short hindi data paper appeared in the BU conference
proceedings a few years ago.

One Chinese person just finished his ph.d. at Boston University in Educational
linguistics.  He also collected data in Beijing and studied the children's use
of names and pronouns following my own work and found some neat things about
politeness with the names.
=================================================



Kevin Durkin
Department of Psychology
The University of Western Australia
=================================================
I got interested in related issues some years ago, as part of a longitudinal
study of (British) mother-infant interaction.  I was particularly interested
in the syntactic consequences of parental speech modifications involving
names: that is, if the mother says "Jilly want one?" or "Does Jilly want
one?" rather than "Do you want one?" what are the consequences for the
child's model of pronouns?

My colleagues and I completed a couple of studies, and I'll be pleased to
send you copies.  Among other things, we coded for use of names as attention
getting devices.
=================================================



Gina Conti-Ramsden
=================================================
One reference that may be helful from my early work is Conti-Ramsden, G.
(1989). Proper name usage: mother-child interactions with language-impaired
and non-language-impaired children. First Language, 9, 271-284.
=================================================



Patricia Clancy
Linguistics Dept.
University of California, Santa Barbara
=================================================
Do you mean names as referring expressions or names used in direct
address?  In my Korean data, it is very common for the mothers to use the
children's names instead of "you".  I haven't pulled out names. vs. other
types of lexical reference, but have looked at lexical vs. pronominal vs.
elliptical reference.  I could send you a paper on that if you'd be
interested.
=================================================



Keiko Nakamura
Psychology Dept.
University of California, Berkeley
=================================================
I've been looking at the use of personal names in children's discourse
(mainly in the context of gender differences).

In Japanese, girls often use personal names to refer to themselves or to others (far more often than using pronouns).  Boys also do so, but use pronouns to
refer to themselves in certain contexts
(e.g., masculine first-person pronouns during rough-and-tumble play and when
boasting), and second-person pronouns to refer to others (e.g., when fighting
with same-sex peers).  Boys use their own names to refer to themselves (alone
or with diminutives) when speaking in certain contexts (e.g., when talking
with mother, or father- people whom they depend on).  Girls do so, too, but
also use their own names (alone or with diminutives) when talking with
same-sex peers.

One reference on Japanese kids is:
Ide, Sachiko (1979), Person References of Japanese and American Children,
Language Sciences, 1, 273-293.
        She uses a flowchart to determine the contexts in which children use
different forms of self-reference and second-person reference.
=================================================



Sandy Thompson
Linguistics Dept.
Univerisity of California, Santa Barbara
=================================================
The best paper I know on proper names (adult, English) is the one by
Pamela Downing in the B. Fox book, Studies in Anaphora, just
announced in a very recent Funknet message.

STUDIES IN ANAPHORA, Barbara Fox (ed.), 1996  xii, 518 pp.
Typological Studies in Language, 33 US/Canada: Cloth: 1 55619 641 5
Price: US$115.00 Paper: 1 55619 642 3  Price: $34.95
Rest of the world: Cloth: 90 272 2927 9  Price: Hfl. 200,--
Paper: 90 272 2928 7  Price: Hfl. 70,--
=================================================




Susan Ervin-Tripp
Psychology Dept.
University of California, Berkeley
=================================================
1. I have found children use names
        (a) to get attention, and
        (b) to allude to relationship, as a persuasive device.

Example, while interacting with attentive mother:

        Can I have some more ice cream mommy mommy mommy?

2. In adult speech, indications are that naming is used in somewhat
tense situations.  There was a study in France of doctor-patient talk
that indicated naming increased during disagreements. There is also
a tradition there of using polite titles during disputes, e.g.
"I think, madam, that you are wrong about that." This appears also
in 18th century British novels, sir, in case you have read some.
Naming appears to me to be more common in French social conversations
than here.  The puzzle, Guo, is how naming could be both a mitigator
and a marker of challenging.

3. Guo, I think adults sometimes use naming as a mitigator, as children
may do. For example, I heard two moving men bringing in
my refrigerator and giving each other directions, move it left,
more back, etc.and they used LOTS of naming even though they
clearly were being attentive, and there was no possible ambiguity
of addressee.

4. In letters, some people use naming as a personalizer,
interspersed in the letter, having the effect of making the
letter writer appear more present, or more attentive to you
as an individual. I know some people who do this a lot, but it
seems to have some cultural variation too, have you noticed,
Guo?
-------------------------
How to think about whether the name is an attention-getter,
mitigator, or challenge marker:

attention getters depend on being ignored (boys are busier, not
looking, less often already collaborating??)

mitigator more likely on second tries for requests?

Actually could be used for different functions by boys and girls?
=================================================




Richard (=Dick) Hudson
Department of Phonetics and Linguistics,
University College London,
Gower Street,
London WC1E 6BT
work phone: +171 419 3152; work fax: +171 383 4108
email: dick at ling.ucl.ac.uk
home page = http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/home.htm
=================================================
Interesting question. I have a brief discussion of the use of names in the
second edition of my book "Sociolinguistics" (Cambridge Univ Press 1996), on
p. 126-7 plus a few other mentions listed in the index. Fascinating
variation and equally fascinating constants across societies.
=================================================


Lise Menn
Linguistics Dept.
CU Boulder
=================================================
I haven't done any work on this, but I have been thinking about it. It's
clear that names serve an emotional purpose of claiming and even specifying
the relationship between speaker and hearer, much more than an
informational one; they can be like a touch or a tug on one's clothing.
Cultural differences are clear; at least in japanese, which I've been
able to observe a little, titles (sensei) are used much more often than
either names or titles in English at the same intra-collegial level.
Overuse of names in English can be rebuked with "That's my name, don't
wear it out!"...I'll be interested in your findings.
=================================================


Anat Ninio
=================================================
I have a large corpus of Hebrew-speaking children in natural interaction
with their mothers, videotaped and analyzed for communicative intent of
each utterance.  There is much and varied use of proper names, but the
question is, what are you interested in in particular?  I don't mind
doing some statistics for you, but as my codes are very detailed, it'd
help to focus on what you're really interested in.  What kind of
distinctions were you thinking of?

I wasn't looking especially for proper-name use, but for
ways of expressing various communicative intents.  If you want to get a
feel for the type and details of the coding system I used, as well as the
kind of results one gets, you could glance at the book we've recently
published (Ninio, A, and Snow, C., Pragmatic development, Westview Press,
1996).
=================================================



Rebecca Sun
University of CIncinnati
Cincinnati, Ohio
=================================================
Hello. I am a 28-year-old female Chinese-American who speaks Mandarin
and English. If needed, I can give you some answers about using
personal names, but I'm not sure what you need.

If you would like to email me back some questions, perhaps we can
handle it that way.
=================================================




Michelina P. Bonanno, Ph.D.           <bonannom at gusun.georgetown.edu>
Georgetown University                  phone: (202) 687-5998
Washington, D.C. 20057, USA
=================================================
I am just wondering what ages you are referring to when you use the term
children.

Also, something that has evolved here in the last 5 or 10 years or so is
interesting - sometimes, children (between the ages of 3 and 7) are now
starting to be taught to call women by the title "Miss" and the woman's
first name.  So for example, my neighbor's 4 year old son calls me "Miss
Michelina" instead of the usual title last name (notice that this is
unusual because I am married, and I also am a Ph.D. so more appropriate
titles might be MS or Mrs or even Dr). Children this age very seldom are
allowed to call an adult by their first name alone.

Anyway, I thought it might be something to look at because it appears to
be an emerging trend. Also, note that in the case of males, I don't think
any children have started to call men by the title Mr. + first name.

This is a trend that I think has been perpetuated by the daycare systems.
In some day care settings the children call their teachers Title + First
Name, so if the teachers name is Susan Jones, she would be called Miss
Susan in a day care or preschool setting, but in an elementary school
setting she would be called Miss or Ms Jones.

Also, note that in the Southern states, it has been the custom for women
at times to be called Miss + first name - so President Carter's (from
Georgia) mother used to be called "Miss Lillian", by people of all ages.
So, there might be  regional variation in what people call each
other in terms of names. President Carter is a good example because, in
the U.S. in the south, people accept the use of diminuitives for men's
names so President Carter was "Jimmy Carter" not James or Jim Carter - but
note that President Clinton (also from the South - Arkansas) is Bill not
Billy! So individual variation and preference also comes into play! This
might be evidenced by children's speech.

Long ago, I attended a conference and listened to a talk about the
importance of names". You might look to see if the American Name Society
still exists and if they have any information that is relevant to your
work.
=================================================



Pamela Downing                          Office: (414) 229-4533
Dept. of English & Comp Lit             Message: (414) 229-4511
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee       Home: (414) 453-4480
Milwaukee, Wi. 53201                    Fax: (414) 453-4481
downing at csd.uwm.edu
=================================================
Dear Guo - I've sent my chapter off to you today.  Unfortunately, I don't
have any immediate suggestions on how to interpret the gender-related
patterns you've observed, although they are very interesting.  You might
be interested in looking at Mira Ariel's book, Accessing Noun Phrase
Antecedents, where she talks about patterns of proper name usage
differentiated by the gender of the referent.  I would certainly be
interested in seeing anything you might write on this topic -
=================================================


Jonathan Evans
University of California, Berkeley
=================================================
Will you also look at differences (if any) between using a name and a
title like "lao-san."?

I am sure you have thought of this, but you might check the journal
_onomastica_.
=================================================



Jean Berko Gleason
Psychology Department
Boston University
=================================================
Some years ago we found, but probably did not report formally, that
grade school boys (5th & 6th grades) used last names in talking to
one another "Ok, Johnson, it's your turn."  Girls in this group
didn't do this.

The function of boys' use of last names seemed to be stylistic--it
made them sound sort of tough and guy-like.

In a small study on men's speech to children we also found that
male preschool teachers used children's names (first names) much
more frequently than female teachers did.  They used them as softeners
along with prohibitives, etc.  This study was small and probably 20
years ago--I can find the ref if it is of any interest, but it was
adult, not child speech.
=================================================



Emanuel A. Schegloff
University of California, Los Angeles
=================================================
You may find the following reference relevant:

Harvey Sacks and Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Two Preferences in the Organization of
Reference to Persons in Conversation and Their Interaction," in George Psathas
(ed.), Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology. (New York: Irvington
Publishers, Inc., 1979) 15-21.

Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Some Practices for Referring to Persons in
Talk-in-Interaction: A Partial Sketch of a Systematics," in Barbara Fox (ed.),
Studies in Anaphora.  (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1996), 437-85.
=================================================



Shoshana Blum-Kulka
=================================================
We have looked at the use of personal names and nicknames at the dinner table
of Jewish American and Israeli families. The reference is:

Blum-Kulka,S & Katriel, T. 1991. Nicknaming practices in families.
In: S. Ting-Toomey & F. Korzenny, eds. Cross-Cultural Interpersonal
Communication. London: Sage, p. 58-78

I'll be happy to hear more, I am fascinated by issues of naming in general,
=================================================



More information about the Funknet mailing list