17.118, Review: Pragmatics/Sociol ing:M árquezReiter&Placencia(2005)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-17-118. Sat Jan 14 2006. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 17.118, Review: Pragmatics/Socioling:MárquezReiter&Placencia(2005)

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1)
Date: 12-Jan-2006
From: César Félix-Brasdefer < cfelixbr at indiana.edu >
Subject: Spanish Pragmatics 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2006 17:57:45
From: César Félix-Brasdefer < cfelixbr at indiana.edu >
Subject: Spanish Pragmatics 
 

AUTHOR: Márquez Reiter, Rosina; Placencia, María Elena 
TITLE: Spanish Pragmatics 
PUBLISHER: Palgrave, Macmillan 
YEAR: 2005
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-2799.html 

César Félix-Brasdefer, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, 
Indiana University, Bloomington.

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY

Spanish Pragmatics consists of an introduction and five chapters, 
followed by 119 endnotes, an extensive bibliography, an authors 
index, and a subject index. The book includes examples from English 
and Spanish, but the examples in Spanish do not have an English 
translation. In addition to the 624 references, there are five additional 
internet resources which provide useful information on speech acts, 
publications in pragmatics and conversation analysis (CA), and 
tutorials for those interested in CA. 

Chapter 1. Introduction
The book adopts a sociocultural pragmatics perspective. Sociocultural 
pragmatics is 'concerned with ''external'' factors, that is, with those 
aspects of the selection and interpretation of linguistic form that 
happen to be determined by social and cultural factors' (Escandell 
Vidal, 2004, p. 348, [cited on p. 2]). The book concentrates on three 
key areas within the Anglo-American School of Pragmatics: ''speech 
acts, conversation, and politeness as sociocultural manifestations of 
communication'' (p. 3). 

The sequential organization of the five main chapters is clearly 
presented, beginning with a theoretical description and a critical 
discussion of speech act theory (language at the utterance level) 
followed by an incisive examination of CA (stretches of talk). After 
laying the foundation of speech act theory and CA, a description and 
a critical appraisal of politeness theory is presented as well as the 
main contributions by Hispanists in pragmatics and discourse analysis. 
The chapter on linguistic politeness is followed by a theoretical and an 
empirical examination of sociopragmatic variation in different varieties 
of Spanish. The last chapter offers a general description of the most 
frequently used methods of data collection in sociopragmatics 
research in Spanish. 

Chapter 2. Speech act theory: Examining language at the utterance 
level
This chapter is divided into three main sections: First, it provides a 
theoretical description and a critical appraisal of speech act theory, as 
outlined in the work of Austin and Searle. Further, this section 
examines the relevance of Austin's and Searle's ideas in 
sociopragmatics and describes the influence that speech act theory 
has on cross-cultural pragmatics. This section ends with some of the 
limitations of speech act theory when applied to the analysis of 
discourse. Second, the theoretical developments in speech act theory 
are examined along with the main contributions of Hispanists. Finally, 
this chapter provides a state-of-the-art description of empirical 
sociopragmatic studies of speech acts, including directives, 
expressives, commissives, and assertives, in different varieties of 
Spanish.

Chapter 3. Conversation analysis: Examining stretches of talk
This chapter offers a detailed description and a critical appraisal of CA 
and highlights its relevance to sociopragmatics. The opening provides 
a description of the inception of CA as grounded in sociological work 
developed by Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff, Gail Jefferson, and 
Anita Pomerantz, among others. Then, various issues regarding data 
collection methodology, data analysis, and issues related to 
transcription conventions are described. Further, six main 
contributions of CA are examined and illustrated with various 
examples in Spanish: the sequential organization of talk, the 
organization of turn-taking, the overall organization of talk, preference 
organization, the organization of laughter, and topic organization. 
Some limitations of CA are briefly discussed. The chapter ends with an 
examination of the work by Hispanists that have incorporated CA in 
Spanish including notions such as repair, delay, back-channeling, turn-
taking, the organization of laughter, preference organization, and 
topic organization. 

Chapter 4. Examining linguistic politeness phenomena
This chapter is divided into four sections beginning with a summary of 
Grice's (1975) Cooperative Principle and its maxims, and offers some 
criticisms that have been voiced against Grice's theory with respect to 
the idea of universality and rationality. Then, a general account of the 
main theories of politeness is presented, followed by some criticisms. 
Following Fraser's (1990) initial classification of politeness models, the 
authors examine five views on politeness and discuss limitations of 
each view. The third section of this chapter comprises a critical 
examination on politeness by various Hispanists with special attention 
given to Peninsular Spanish and offers alternative models of 
politeness proposed by seasoned Hispanists. The chapter ends with a 
comprehensive description of empirical studies which have examined 
speech act realization and (im)politeness phenomena in different 
varieties of Spanish derived from the face-saving and sociocultural 
perspectives. 

Chapter 5. Examining sociopragmatic variation
This chapter addresses the issue of sociopragmatic variation at both 
the theoretical and empirical levels. According to the authors, one of 
the aims of sociopragmatics is ''to uncover the cultural norms which 
underlie the interactional features of a given social group in a given 
social context'' (p. 192). In particular, sociopragmatic variation in 
Spanish is largely analyzed by means of intra-cultural (e.g., 
Montevideans in a requesting vs. apologizing situation) and cross-
cultural (e.g., request realization in Quito and Madrid) patterns of 
interaction. Moreover, in order to elucidate differences in the norms of 
interaction of given social groups and in given social contexts, a 
distinction between pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic failure 
(Thomas 1983) is made and illustrated with relevant communicative 
exchanges. Finally, empirical studies on (socio)pragmatic variation in 
different varieties of Spanish are described: variation in speech act 
realization, conversational organization, and politeness. For the most 
part, Peninsular Spanish is often compared to a Latin American variety 
of Spanish; very few cross-dialectal studies examine politeness 
variation in two varieties of the same country such as the Spanish 
spoken in Cuzco and Lima. As rightly pointed out by the authors, 
future research is needed to address other aspects of sociopragmatic 
variation across Spanish(es).

Chapter 6. Research methods in sociopragmatics
This 18-page chapter is the shortest in the book and discusses issues 
in methods used to collect (socio)pragmatic data in Spanish. After a 
brief discussion of the 'observer's paradox', this chapter examines the 
benefits and disadvantages for gathering two types of naturally-
occurring data: natural spoken discourse and the collection of field 
notes from observation. Next, a description of the various ways to 
record and transcribe natural data is presented, followed by a general 
discussion of transcription of natural data using both tape- and video-
recordings. Given that most empirical studies in Spanish 
sociopragmatics (and also in interlanguage pragmatics) have favored 
elicited over natural data, three instruments employed to gather 
elicited data are described: role plays, discourse completion tests, and 
multiple-choice questionnaires, followed by a description of rating 
scales and retrospective verbal reports. Finally, general issues on 
data triangulation and ethics for the collection of research data are 
discussed. 
 
EVALUATION 

A significant contribution of each chapter is the inclusion of theoretical 
aspects of (socio) pragmatics and CA, followed by a comprehensive 
description of empirical studies in Spanish (socio) pragmatics 
research. In particular, in the chapters on 'conversation analysis' 
and 'sociopragmatic variation' the reader can identify various areas for 
future research in Spanish. The Spanish examples used to illustrate 
various notions of pragmatics are clear and are suitable for upper-
level undergraduate students and graduate students in pragmatics. 
The extended bibliography and the internet resources provided are an 
excellent bank of information for graduate students, teachers, and 
researchers interested in speech act theory, conversation analysis, 
politeness theory, and sociopragmatic variation in Spanish.

Due to the sociocultural perspective, the book does not include 
theoretical topics that are often covered in graduate courses in 
(Spanish)pragmatics, such as presupposition, deixis, and theoretical 
developments on conversational implicature. As a result, this book 
would be most appropriately used as a complementary text in 
graduate courses in Spanish pragmatics or conversation analysis and 
in seminars on discourse analysis or linguistic politeness. Given the 
depth of theoretical analysis in speech act theory, politeness theory, 
and conversation analysis, and the detailed descriptions of empirical 
studies in sociopragmatics in Spanish, undergraduate students may 
need additional introductory readings in pragmatics to better 
understand the information presented in the book. 
 
The last chapter examines various methods for collecting 
ethnographic and elicited data in (socio)pragmatics research in 
Spanish; little attention is generally given to the issue of reliability and 
validity, as briefly discussed in the section of data triangulation (p. 
228). Reliability provides information as to whether an instrument, for 
example role plays, administered to the same respondents on a 
different occasion would yield similar results. On the other hand, 
validity refers to ''the degree to which a test measures what it claims, 
or purports, to be measuring'' (Brown, 1996, p. 231). Moreover, the 
discussion on verbal reports seems too general (pp. 224-25) and 
lacks detail with regard to the various types of verbal reports utilized in 
the literature. The following references (not cited in the book) address 
in detail and precision the issue of verbal reports, validity and 
reliability, and data triangulation: Brown 2001, Cohen 1998 (chapter 
3) & 2004, Davis & Henze 1998, DuFon 2001. 

Also, while the focus of the book is on Spanish pragmatics, little 
attention is given to the field of interlanguage pragmatics related to 
Spanish.  A current view of research methods in interlanguage 
pragmatics and institutional discourse and an extended description of 
ethical aspects for data collection of (interlanguage) pragmatic data 
can be found in Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford (2005) (chapters 1, 8). 

Overall, this book is a much needed resource for courses in Spanish 
pragmatics and a welcome contribution on research on the pragmatics 
of Spanish and discourse analysis. The book is well-written and is 
targeted to both advanced (upper-level) undergraduate students with 
a background in (Spanish) linguistics and to graduate students whose 
main interest lies in the (socio)pragmatics of Spanish. It provides 
critical appraisals of speech act theory, conversation analysis, and 
politeness theory, and brings together the main ideas of (socio)
pragmatics research by leading Hispanists around the world. Due to 
its scope and impressive collection of references on the topic, the 
book is an excellent and comprehensive resource for teachers, 
graduate students, and researchers in (Spanish) pragmatics.

REFERENCES

Bardovi-Harlig, K. & Hartford, B. (2005). Intercultural Pragmatics: 
Exploring Institutional Talk. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 

Brown, J. D. (1996). Testing in Language Programs. Upper Saddle 
River, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents. 

Brown, J. D. (2001). Pragmatic tests: Different purposes, different 
tests. In K. R. Rose & G. Kasper (Eds.), Pragmatics in Language 
Teaching (pp. 301-325). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in 
Language Use. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 

Cohen, A. D. (1998). Strategies in Learning and Using a Second 
Language. London, 
UK: Longman.

Cohen, A. D. (2004). Assessing speech acts in a second language. In 
D. Boxer & A. D. Cohen (Eds.), Studying Speaking to Inform Second 
Language Learning (pp. 302-327).  Clevedon, UK: Multilingual 
Matters.

Davis, K., & Henze, R. C. (1998). Applying ethnographic perspectives 
to issues in cross-cultural pragmatics. Journal of Pragmatics 30, 399-
419.

DuFon, M. A. (2001). Triangulation in qualitative SLA research on 
interlanguage  pragmatics. In Xenia Bonch-Bruevich et al. (Eds.), The 
Past, Present, and Future of Second Language Research (pp. 251-
270). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.

Escandell Vidal, V. (2004). Norms and principles: Putting social and 
cognitive pragmatics together. In R. Márquez Reiter & M.E. Placencia 
(Eds.), Current Trends in the Pragmatics of Spanish (pp. 347-71). 
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Fraser, Bruce. (1990). Perspectives on politeness. Journal of 
Pragmatics 14, 219-36.

Grice, P. (1975 [1967]). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J. 
Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics: Speech Acts 3 (pp. 41-58). 
New York: Academic Press.

Thomas, J. (1983). Cross-cultural pragmatic failure. Applied 
Linguistics 4, 91-112. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER 

César Félix-Brasdefer is an Assistant Professor of Spanish and 
Linguistics at Indiana University, Bloomington. His research interests 
include the semantics/pragmatics interface, sociocultural pragmatics, 
conversation analysis, interlanguage pragmatics, research methods in 
linguistic variation, speech act theory, politeness theory, and 
instruction in second language pragmatics.





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