25.1307, Review: Pragmatics: Aijmer (2013)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-25-1307. Mon Mar 17 2014. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 25.1307, Review: Pragmatics: Aijmer (2013)

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Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 18:23:09
From: Edie Furniss [furnisse at gmail.com]
Subject: Understanding Pragmatic Markers

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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/24/24-2810.html

AUTHOR: Karin  Aijmer
TITLE: Understanding Pragmatic Markers
SUBTITLE: A Variational Pragmatic Approach
PUBLISHER: Edinburgh University Press
YEAR: 2013

REVIEWER: Edie Furniss, Pennsylvania State University

SUMMARY

The book under review is an analysis of several pragmatic markers in English.
The author uses a variational approach to illuminate the ways in which these
markers function across text types and varieties. Aijmer begins the work with
a definition of pragmatic markers, an introduction to the research that has
been done in this area, and a description of the field of variational
pragmatics. This is followed by three separate studies on the pragmatic
markers ‘well’, ‘in fact’ and ‘actually’, and general extenders (such as ‘and
stuff like that’).

In her introduction, Aijmer notes the recent proliferation of research on
pragmatic markers, summarizing the various approaches that have been used. In
this book, she takes a variational pragmatic approach to these markers. This
approach examines the ways in which social, cultural, and regional factors
affect the functions of pragmatic markers.

Aijmer begins with a definition of pragmatic markers and their role in general
pragmatic theory. She argues that pragmatic markers are reflexive in that they
serve as “indicators of metapragmatic awareness” (p. 5), thereby, for example,
organizing discourse, which reflects the speaker’s internal planning
processes. They also serve as contextualization cues that aid the hearer in
understanding when a change takes place in the activity or in speaker roles --
e.g., closing a telephone conversation.

She then discusses her methodology for the studies included in the book,
justifying her extensive use of the ICE-GB Corpus (the British Component of
the International Corpus of English). The corpus includes recordings of the
constituent texts, allowing for prosodic analysis of the pragmatic markers
under study. Further, it contains texts across a variety of genres, which
Aijmer exploits in her analyses. A corpus-based approach, she argues, allows
researchers access to both quantitative and qualitative information.

Aijmer discusses the various linguistic theories that address the relationship
between pragmatic markers and context: integrative theories (which are richly
descriptive in nature, e.g., Schiffrin 1987); relevance theory; and the theory
of meaning potentials. Aijmer adopts the meaning potential approach, which
highlights the role of context in the use of pragmatic markers. In this view,
the meaning of a given pragmatic marker arises in communication; the range of
meaning potentials is part of the speaker’s knowledge of language. This kind
of approach, Aijmer argues, is critical as these markers are highly
polysemous.

Aijmer continues with a discussion of the indexical function of pragmatic
markers -- they can index the speaker, hearer, social identities, stance, and
the speech event. Thus, these markers require both speaker and hearer to
utilize their linguistic resources in order to use and interpret them
correctly. She emphasizes the importance of formal features, particularly
placement, in discussing the meaning potentials of pragmatic markers.

The first study deals with the pragmatic marker ‘well’. Aijmer gives a
thorough overview of previous studies of this marker -- one of the most
commonly studied, likely because it is highly frequent in English -- noting
that its functions and its meaning (if any) are under question.

Aijmer then describes her study of ‘well’, first providing statistics on its
distribution across text types (private and public dialogue, unscripted
monologues, and others). According to data from the ICE-GB corpus, ‘well’ is
largely confined to spoken language, occurring rarely in writing (and only in
fiction and social letters). ‘Well’ is dialogic, as it is used more frequently
in dialogue than monologue. She chooses the following representative text
types for her investigation of ‘well’: face-to-face conversation, telephone
conversation, broadcast discussion, cross-examination, and spontaneous
commentary (e.g., sports commentary). Aijmer begins her analysis with a
description of the formal features of ‘well’ (its prosodic features, position,
and co-occurrence with pauses), followed by mention of its frequent collocates
(‘okay’, ‘now’, ‘at least’, ‘anyway’).

Next, the author considers the various functions of ‘well’. It functions as a
coherence marker with the following sub-senses: word search and self-repair;
projecting a new turn; transition according to an agenda; and transition to a
quotation. She provides several corpus excerpts illustrating each function. In
the word-search and self-repair function, ‘well’ “is closely associated with
consideration, deliberation, hesitation” (p. 32), thereby exercising its
reflexive nature. It can be used as a turn-taking device, with a transitional
function (signaling a change of topic), and to introduce direct speech (often
accompanied by an interjection or another pragmatic marker). ‘Well’ also
expresses involvement: agreement, disagreement, positive or negative
evaluation, and provides feedback to a question (it often indicates an
insufficient answer). Finally, ‘well’ has a politeness function -- generally,
it is used to hedge.

After examining the functions of ‘well’ found in the corpus, Aijmer looks at
its use across genres. For instance, ‘well’ is used differently in telephone
conversation and in face-to-face conversation. She describes the differences
by looking at the functions most characteristic of each genre, and the
variation in formal features. ‘Well’ occurs more frequently in telephone than
in face-to-face conversation, and it functions largely as a floor-holding
signal. This, Aijmer argues, is due to the difficult nature of turn-taking in
telephone conversation. She then looks at ‘well’ in public dialogue, which
includes broadcast discussions and interviews, classroom lessons,
parliamentary debates, legal cross-examinations and business transactions.
‘Well’ in broadcast discussion “indexes functions associated with the roles as
moderator or participant in the debate” (p. 57). For example, when a
discussant uses ‘well’ with a preface like ‘let me address that directly’, the
marker conveys a sense of authority to the utterance that follows. Moderators
use ‘well’ to introduce topics, invite new speakers to take a turn, and in
other discourse management functions. The broadcast discussion frame, which
includes both the nature of the talk (debate) and the typical participant
roles (moderator and expert discussants) promotes the use of certain functions
of ‘well’ over others. In cross-examinations, ‘well’ is not typically indexing
politeness, but rather “can be a sign of power and aggressiveness depending on
who uses it” (p. 64). When used by a prosecutor, it can introduce a
challenging question and stress the speaker’s authority; when used by a
witness or defendant, it signals correction or denial of the question being
responded to. Finally, Aijmer looks at the use of ‘well’ in spontaneous
commentaries (mainly on sports events), where it takes on a punctuating
function as the speaker attends to the game action in real-time. This is
related to the nature of such commentaries: they are time-constrained and
therefore related to the need for speed and fluency.

The second study contrasts the two pragmatic markers ‘in fact’ and ‘actually’.
Again, Aijmer looks at how these markers function across text types and social
situations in order to analyze their subtle differences. She uses the ICE-GB
Corpus again, finding that these two markers are more common in speech than
writing; that ‘actually’ is, overall, more common than ‘in fact’; and that ‘in
fact’ is more frequent in monologue while ‘actually’ is more frequent in
dialogue. Previous research has suggested that both of these markers have an
adversative (contrastive or oppositive) function. Aijmer first categorizes the
various functions of ‘in fact’: emphasizing reality (meaning the truthfulness
of what is said); opposition (both strong and weak); elaboration (through
clarification or upgrading a claim); hedging (downtowning opposition); and
softening (generally in end position). In conversation, ‘in fact’ is most
often associated with elaboration, but functions in more specialized ways
depending on speaker identity, the relationship between the speaker and the
hearer, and activity goals. ‘In fact’ is used in cross-examinations to “mark
the transition to a question where both the speaker and the hearer know the
answer to the question” (p. 103); in broadcast discussions, it carries a
persuasive force; in demonstrations (where one person speaks to an audience)
‘in fact’ marks an utterance as an explanation, and strengthens the speaker’s
argument; and in unscripted speeches ‘in fact’ “was used to argue against what
is commonly thought” (p. 103).

Aijmer determined that ‘actually’ is found in text types with high levels of
interaction and involvement and is typically dialogical. As for formal
features, it occurred most frequently in medial position (56.5%), was never
followed by a pause, and collocated most frequently with ‘well’. The author
found the following functions of ‘actually’, some of which overlap with the
functions of ‘in fact’: emphasizing reality; opposition; hedging and
politeness (often signaling an apology); introducing something unexpected or
surprising; emphasizing the speaker’s position (with a slight adversative
meaning); elaboration (including a change of perspective); topic shift; and
softening (again, generally in end position). ‘Actually’ occurred most
frequently in conversation “to strengthen co-operation and to establish
familiarity and solidarity by conveying an apology or a defensive attitude
with regard to some opposition” (p. 123). However, like ‘in fact’, it has
specialized functions in other text types: in business transactions it
emphasizes the personal position of the speaker in order to aid in decision
making; in the classroom, it is often used in teacher explanations; and in
demonstrations, it highlights the speaker’s authority and the unexpected
nature of a result. The author summarizes the differences between ‘in fact’
and ‘actually’ in a table (p. 124), showing that, while these two pragmatic
markers are similar, they have formal and functional differences across text
types.

In the book’s final study, Aijmer examines general extenders (‘and things’,
‘and stuff like that’, among others) across varieties of English. First, she
describes the formal structure of extenders, listing the typical collocational
frames which “contain ‘and’ and ‘or’ followed by a generic noun or an
indefinite pronoun” (p. 130). Again, she uses data from the ICE-project,
covering a range of regional varieties: British, Australian, New Zealand,
Canadian, and Singaporean; and from the Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken
American English. The study gives quantitative figures for the distribution of
a selection of general extenders across the varieties, then examines their
variability “in terms of their association with politeness norms favoured by
different regional varieties” (p. 137). Aijmer discusses the role of
grammaticalization in variation, finding that short forms of extenders appear
to be more grammaticalized than long forms, and are therefore more frequent
and serve interpersonal functions (like invoking shared knowledge).

She also makes a distinction between general extenders starting with ‘and’ and
those starting with ‘or’, arguing that ‘and’-extenders emphasize social
similarity and group membership, while ‘or’-extenders mark vagueness.
‘And’-extenders can also serve to punctuate utterances, in addition to marking
shared knowledge. Further, general extenders can aid in fluency, as they ‘buy’
the speaker time to plan their speech.

EVALUATION

Aijmer’s volume on pragmatic markers is thorough, nuanced, and highly
sensitive to contextual factors. The role of context is crucial to any
discussion of pragmatics, but is, unfortunately, all too often overlooked in
the analysis of markers. Aijmer harnesses a range of corpora to aid her
investigation, thus giving it an edge that many other studies of pragmatic
markers lack. Further, by taking into account formal, functional, and
contextual information, the author produces a deep and subtle analysis of the
linguistic elements at hand.

In her analysis of ‘well’, Aijmer convincingly argues that the neglect of
contextual features like text type and speaker role have resulted in a lack of
understanding of the wide range of functions of ‘well’ -- past research has
focused predominantly on ‘well’ in conversation, with little attention paid to
other genres. The author illustrates all of these functions with well-chosen
corpus excerpts and quantitative information on frequency of the various
functions. Her analysis addresses, systematically and in great detail, the
dynamic nature of ‘well’ -- its preferred meanings vary depending on context,
genre, speaker roles, and so on.

The other two studies are more limited in scope, but should inspire further
scholarship dedicated to these less-studied areas. In her chapter on ‘in fact’
and ‘actually’, Aijmer provides an excellent foundation for future research on
these markers; more focused studies of the various text types and functions
examined therein will add even more nuance to discussions of these pragmatic
markers. In the book’s final study, Aijmer touches upon the role of
grammaticalization in general extender variation; this is an intriguing
proposition that deserves further investigation.

A variational approach to the study of general extenders (and pragmatic
markers in general) is crucial to understanding their functions, which can
vary due to “different cultural habits as regards politeness or speech style
and co-operative principles” (p. 145); however, this issue was not
investigated in detail in the study at hand. Aijmer notes that ‘and all that’
in Singapore English seems to be a solidarity marker, but provides only one
example of this usage; she acknowledges that this study is only a beginning.
Another shortcoming, which Aijmer notes in the footnotes, is that the study
does not use a ‘function first’ or bottom-up approach to locating general
extenders, instead first compiling a list of general extenders then searching
for them in the corpus. This is a rich area for future research.

This book is a considerable achievement in an understudied area. Because
pragmatic markers are so pervasive in language, yet can be so difficult to
define and pin down, variational approaches are particularly attractive as
they make their study much more manageable. Further, referring to the meaning
potential of these markers accounts for their instability and flexibility of
meaning, and provides a sound explanation for the ability of language users to
interpret pragmatic markers in all their variety. Many elements come into
play: text type, speaker role, speaker and hearer relationship, and formal
features like position and prosody. Markers that appear to be synonymous, like
‘actually’ and ‘in fact’, serve different functions depending on such
contextual factors. This is important for pedagogical purposes, as general
definitions of such words and phrases do not account for nuances in usage.
“Understanding Pragmatic Markers” will be of interest to sociolinguistic
researchers, discourse analysts, specialists in pragmatic markers, and
researchers and instructors of spoken language.

REFERENCES

Schiffrin, Deborah. 1987. Discourse markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Edie Furniss is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Applied Linguistics at
the Pennsylvania State University. Her research interests include formulaic
language, pragmatics, materials development, corpus linguistics, and Russian
language and culture.








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