29.3199, Review: French; Romance; Discourse Analysis; Historical Linguistics; Linguistic Theories; Pragmatics; Semantics: Nølke (2017)
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LINGUIST List: Vol-29-3199. Sat Aug 18 2018. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.
Subject: 29.3199, Review: French; Romance; Discourse Analysis; Historical Linguistics; Linguistic Theories; Pragmatics; Semantics: Nølke (2017)
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Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2018 12:47:49
From: Maria Assunta Ciardullo [ciardullomarie at gmail.com]
Subject: Linguistic Polyphony
Discuss this message:
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/28/28-1895.html
AUTHOR: Henning Nølke
TITLE: Linguistic Polyphony
SUBTITLE: The Scandinavian Approach: ScaPoLine
SERIES TITLE: Studies in Pragmatics
PUBLISHER: Brill
YEAR: 2017
REVIEWER: Maria Assunta Ciardullo, University of Calabria
SUMMARY
“Linguistic Polyphony. The Scandinavian Approach: ScaPoLine” is a book written
by Henning Nølke and published in 2017. The volume deals with the ScaPoLine
approach, that is an utterance act theory elaborated by Scandinavian scholars
in order to tackle linguistic polyphony. Polyphony here and throughout the
book is intended as that phenomenon that occurs when two or more voices are
heard within a textual or literary work.
The volume is made up of six chapters, an introduction, a conclusion, and a
rich paratextual apparatus. In fact, this last section includes the
acknowledgements, a list of illustrations, a list of abbreviations, a
bibliography and two final indexes, one concerning the names of scholars
mentioned throughout the work and the second regarding the topics developed.
The introduction of the book discusses the semantics of the term “polyphony”
from different points of view which all lead to the redefinition of the
concept, especially in the linguistic perspective. In fact, polyphony in
language is here described as an essential key for any text interpretation, in
particular for those dealing with multicultural and globalised contexts. The
writer states that many books concerning linguistic polyphony have been a
French specialty for too long and that now scholars claim the necessity of
having a proper bibliography for English-speaking academics and readership.
This vacuum has been particularly underlined by scholars interested in
ScaPoLine, i.e. the Scandinavian approach to polyphony in language, that is
now investigated in this first theoretical volume ever written in English. The
introductory section also includes a final paragraph concerning the
structure of the book and some practical linguistic guidelines regarding
examples and utterances mentioned throughout the volume.
Each chapter of the volume tackles the topic of linguistic polyphony in a
deductive way: in fact, the author discusses the subject starting from a
general and theoretical angle culminating in the analysis of some empirical
examples.
The first chapter of the book, “Utterance Act Linguistics (UAL)”, deepens the
macro-topic of the linguistique de l’énonciation, a theoretical mare magnum
which focuses on the énonciation, i.e. the utterance act, including the
illocutionary acts. This theory was first developed by the French linguist
Charles Bally, one of the most influential de Saussure’s followers. Since this
particular epistemological field has not been investigated in Anglophone
linguistics, as Lyons 1977: 26 observed in his seminal works on semantics, the
writer of the volume introduces this scientific domain into English by giving
it the name of “utterance act linguistics” (henceforth UA linguistics).
Therefore, the first chapter presents a solid historical survey on UA
linguistics by examining six utterance act theories that have been fundamental
for the development of the French linguistic specialty.
“Polyphony” is the second chapter of the book and focuses on the concept of
polyphony in linguistics. By discussing the etymology of the term and its
applications in musicology, discourse analysis and literary studies, the
author states the fundamental meaning of the notion, which is recognizable
when two or more voices are heard within the same text, especially in literary
ones. This peculiarity is also justified by the first appearance of the term:
in fact, it was first mentioned in Mikhail Bakhtin’s book on Dostoyevsky
(1929) where the term “polyphony” was used to designate the relationship
between the Russian writer and his hero. Due to the recent rediscovery of
Bakhtin’s masterpiece, the concept of polyphony has been deeply investigated
by linguists, especially by Oswald Ducrot 1980, 1982 and 1984 who developed
the theory of polyphony sensu stricto. However, Bakhtin’s idea of polyphony
and that elaborated by Ducrot differ from a semantic perspective: in fact,
Bakhtinian polyphony deals with texts whereas that of Ducrot focuses on
specific utterances. This structural divergence motivates the existence of two
different types of the polyphonic phenomenon: as the author states, nowadays
we have literary polyphony, which relates to text construction as a parameter
used in interpretation, and linguistic polyphony, put at the core of
linguistic studies. After this theoretical focus, the chapter discusses five
different kinds of polyphony deriving from Ducrot’s theories and approaches.
Chapter 3 is entirely dedicated to the Scandinavian approach to polyphony and
this is explicitly summed up by the title “ScaPoLine: The Scandinavian Theory
of Polyphony”. This theoretical model derives from the theorization elaborated
by Ducrot but discusses critically its principles at the utterance level. In
this chapter, the author describes the current state of the art of the
Scandinavian approach to polyphony by highlighting the fact that ScaPoLine is
in constant evolution both theoretically and empirically. After a brief
historical introduction, the linguist examines each feature of the linguistic
approach here developed.
As the title suggests, Chapter 4 presents some analyses and examples of
linguistic polyphony. To date, many linguists have pointed out that several
linguistic phenomena, such as connectors, modalities, tense, prosodic
elements, etc. can represent linguistic polyphony. Even though the author is
aware of the significant quantity and quality of linguistic markers of
polyphony, he only presents some illustrative ScaPoLine analyses and examples
without including prosodic elements because they are evident and obvious
markers of linguistic polyphony. Furthermore, he gives a lot of attention to
discourse particles by stating that these elements are highly polyphonic since
they indicate composite interactional nuances (for example, see the Danish
discourse particles ‘jo’ and ‘egentlig’ as suggested also by Therkelsen 2001
and Jensen 2006). Overall findings suggest that all the linguistic categories
analysed seem to be interrelated and, therefore, their examination must be
conducted by considering this significant aspect. In addition, results
proposed show that language is essentially polyphonic, interactional, and
designed to assist communication within society.
“Text Analyses” is the fifth chapter of the book. This section is based on
some text analyses conducted with the ScaPoLine approach. Along with the
discussion of some textual problems that can occur with the ScaPoLine
approach, the author proposes an experimental investigation of two important
polyphonic phenomena, i.e. represented discourse and irony. Results of the
examination carried out show that ScaPoLine can produce new knowledge about
represented discourse and irony. In order to deepen these results, the author
wishes a collaboration between linguistics and other empirical disciplines:
only by using these sciences together can polyphony be completely understood
in textual materials.
Chapter 6 is the last thematic unit of the book. Its title, “Linguistic
Polyphony in a Broader Perspective”, smartly sums up the content of this final
section. In fact, the author shows that ScaPoLine methodologies can be easily
applicable to many linguistic domains, such as that of language didactics and
cross-linguistic language studies. The scholar underlines the benefits that
the Scandinavian approach would bring into social and transcultural phenomena
(e.g. political speech, literary translations, etc.) by analysing polyphony in
texts. ScaPoLine would definitely perfect and refine all the results achieved
by sociolinguists, literature scholars, translators and linguists sensu largo
by adding new elements to the monodisciplinary research already completed.
The book is completed by a conclusion that summarizes how the topic of
ScaPoLine has been developed throughout the chapters. As the author states at
the very end of the volume, the Scandinavian approach to polyphony can help
the reader and linguists to obtain a better understanding of language and
texts that are intrinsically characterised by polyphonic features.
EVALUATION
“Linguistic Polyphony. The Scandinavian Approach: ScaPoLine” represents a very
well-written book about a linguistic topic that has never before been fully
investigated by English scholars. The author uses a simple yet precise and
clear style to talk about this new approach to the study of polyphony.
The introduction represents a valid and functional section of the book because
it contains two paragraphs that anticipate the thematic structure of the book
and provide for some practical and helpful suggestions to the readers.
An additional remarkable aspect is constituted by the explanation of the term
“polyphony” that is made at the very beginning of the book. This author’s
choice works very well because it clarifies the central topic of the
publication before its more complex development in the following chapters.
Another important trait of the volume is represented by the general overview
of the Utterance Act Linguistics that is offered in the first thematic section
of the work. This theoretical description introduces the concept of polyphony
and the way the Scandinavian approach works: this consequential order of
presentation is a positive aspect that facilitates the reading of the book
both for a naïve readership and a specialised one.
The aspect just described can be easily extended to the entire work: focusing
on a single linguistic topic and presenting the argumentation in a deductive
way is a commendable quality of the work, especially because the volume is the
first one completely dealing with this new linguistic approach.
Over all, “Linguistic Polyphony. The Scandinavian Approach: ScaPoLine”
constitutes an essential reference for linguists, sociolinguists, and
literary scholars because it deeply describes a new and innovative approach to
polyphony that can effortlessly be adopted within a wide range of disciplines
in order to analyse all the voices included within a text.
REFERENCES
Bakhtin, M. (1929). La Poétique de Dostoïevski. Paris : Seuil
Bally, C. (1932). Linguistique générale et linguistique français. Paris: E.
Leroux
Ducrot, O. (1980). Analyse de texte et linguistique de l’énonciation. In O.
Ducrot et al. (eds.) Le mots du discours. Paris: Minuit, pp. 7-56
Ducrot, O. (1982). La notion du sujet parlant. Recherches sur la philosophie
et le langage, 2, pp. 65-93
Ducrot, O. (1984). Le dire et le dit. Paris: Minuit
Jensen, E.S. (2006). Egentlig og faktisk og to slags spørgsmål
polyfoniteoretisk anskuet. Sproglig polyfoni, 6, pp. 27-52
Lyons, J. (1977). Semantics I+II. Cambridge: University Press
Nølke, H. (1999). La polyphonie: analyses littéraire et linguistique. Tribune
9, Skriftserie for romansk institutt, Universitetet i Bergen, éds. Kjersti
Fløttum et Helge Vidar Holm, pp. 5-19
Nølke, H. (2006). Pour une théorie linguistique de la polyphonie: problèmes,
avantages, perspectives. In L. Perrin (ed.), Le sens et ses voix. Dialogisme
et polyphonie en langue et en discours. Metz: Université Paul Verlaine, pp.
243-269
Therkelsen, R. (2001). The Danish particles ‘jo’, ‘da’ and ‘vel’. In A.
Holmes, J.-O. Svantesson & Å. Viberg (eds.), Proceedings of the 18th
Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics. Travaux de l’Institut de Linguistique
de Lund. Lund: Lund University, vol. 2, pp. 255-270
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Maria Assunta Ciardullo is a Ph.D. student in Linguistics at the University of
Calabria and has been a Visiting Ph.D. student at the University of York (UK).
Her Ph.D. project is inscribed within the fields of Forensic Sociolinguistics,
Forensic Pragmatics and Women's Studies and specifically deals with the
semantic-pragmatic analysis of conversational dominance practised by criminal
women in wiretappings. Her research interests include Forensic Linguistics,
Forensic Phonetics, Gender Studies and Sociolinguistics.
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