16.97, Review: Pragmatics/Discourse Analysis: Lennon (2004)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-16-97. Fri Jan 14 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.97, Review: Pragmatics/Discourse Analysis: Lennon (2004)

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1)
Date: 11-Jan-2005
From: Jan Chovanec < chovanec at phil.muni.cz >
Subject: Allusions in the Press: An Applied Linguistic Study 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 02:36:35
From: Jan Chovanec < chovanec at phil.muni.cz >
Subject: Allusions in the Press: An Applied Linguistic Study 
 

AUTHOR: Lennon, Paul
TITLE: Allusions in the Press
SUBTITLE: An Applied Linguistic Study
PUBLISHER: Mouton de Gruyter
YEAR: 2004
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/15/15-2337.html


Jan Chovanec, Masaryk University, Brno

SYNOPSIS

Allusions in the Press is an applied linguistic study of the form, 
function and usage of echoic allusions carried out on a corpus of non-
literary texts - British newspapers. The defining characteristic of 
allusion is the existence of an 'echo' between one unit of language in 
praesentia (the alluding unit) and another unit in absentia (the target). 
We are thus dealing with a device which has a primary reference to the 
present text and a secondary reference to an absent text. Owing to this 
property, allusion yields a double meaning: "a primary, textual meaning in 
accord with the context and co-text of the manifest text, and a secondary 
associational meaning, suggested by the remembered context and co-text of 
the source text" (p. 5). As such, it is a cover term for a number of 
language-use phenomena which cannot be described solely with regard to 
their form. They must also be described with respect to their pragmatic 
and functional characteristics. 

The author's primary aim is to argue that allusion is "a far more central 
ingredient of linguistic activity in the written mode (...) and that the 
ability to recognise, process and understand allusion is an important part 
of reader competence" (p. 6). Allusion, in his view, is not to be treated 
as a literary device, but a fact of everyday linguistic life on quite 
mundane levels.

In Chapter 2, allusion is placed within numerous theories of indirect 
language comprehension. It begins with the identification of meaning as 
deriving, within the framework of functional and structural linguistics, 
from the differences within sets of linguistic items rather than being 
located within the linguistic items themselves. Texts are thus seen to 
contain pragmatic presuppositions which exist at the paradigmatic level, 
i.e. in absentia (p. 24). In cognitive terms, they refer to shared 
background knowledge - schemata, frames and scripts - which are activated 
and accessed by means of inferencing. The extent of 'common ground' 
differs in various cultural communities. Such background knowledge also 
includes intertextuality - the knowledge of other texts, crucial for the 
theory of allusion.

In pragmatic terms, indirectness is discussed with reference to Gricean 
principles and the theory of conversational implicature. However, such 
a 'Standard Pragmatic Model', which considers figurative language as an 
instance of flouting the Co-operative principle, is reinterpreted in terms 
of Sperber and Wilson's (1995) relevance principle: in the case of 
ambiguous, formulaic and nonce language, "the context is used to infer the 
propositional meaning from the start" (p. 38). Indirectness, of which 
allusion as purposive ambiguity (p. 39) is an instance, is seen as the 
norm rather than the exception in many situations. 

Allusion is also considered in relation to other instances of indirect 
language - irony, metaphor, idioms and innuendo. Thus irony, among others, 
is described as a form of 'allusional pretence', metaphor is seen in terms 
of 'properties of attribution' which are alluded to, idioms are 
interpreted as allusive when not reported verbatim but with a degree of 
productive variation, and innuendo is understood as still another example 
when contextual knowledge is alluded to and drawn on. The theoretical 
discussion is concluded by considering the role of consciousness in 
understanding allusions and the construction-integration model. It is 
argued that this framework of cognitive linguistics is well suited to the 
understanding of the processing of figurative language.

Chapter 3 provides an overview of previous work on allusion, concentrating 
on linguistically-oriented descriptions. It notes that allusions and 
quotations can be perceived in terms of a scale of lexicalization, which 
has a subjective nature - Lennon emphasizes that "what is allusive for one 
reader may be merely a commonplace metaphorical idiom for another" (p. 
67). Existing studies of allusion in the press are assessed and the 
discussion goes on to consider the placement of allusion among other 
common foregrounding techniques, such as allusive punning and allusive 
metaphor. 

The analysis of allusions in the corpus assembled by the author is carried 
out in Chapters 4 and 5. Six analytical categories are identified 
according to the character of the target unit: quotation, title, proverb, 
formulaic text, name, and set phrase. The analysis compares and contrasts 
the use of allusion with respect to these six categories in broadsheets 
and tabloids and in the individual papers. It proceeds to consider the 
frequency distributions across newspaper sections, providing a complex 
cross-comparison between the particular variables. The analysis of the 
sources of allusions reveals the degree to which allusions are culture-
based and how much they draw on the presupposed shared background 
knowledge of the target audience: the sources are taken not only from the 
area of 'high' culture (Shakespeare - 21%, the Bible - 20%, other 
literature - 20%) but also from the field of 'low' or 'popular' culture 
(the allusive recycling of words from advertising slogans and pop songs 
etc.) The findings show that although the broadsheets tend to prefer 
literary allusions and the 'tabloids' look to the popular culture for 
target texts of allusions, there is no simple dichotomy between the two 
traditional types of papers. As the data about the frequency of allusion 
also show, we should rather think of the particular broadsheets and 
tabloids as arranged on scales which may, with respect to various 
linguistic phenomena, be partially overlapping. 

Chapter 5 is devoted to the alluding and target units. First, the 
syntactic status of the alluding unit is discussed (with the finding that 
the noun phrase is the most frequent). Second, the complex nature of the 
relationship between the alluding and target units is explored. The focus 
is on surface identity, morpho-grammatical adaptation, lexical 
substitution (on a slot-and-filler basis), expansion, and deletion. The 
author concludes that the high correspondences of a lexico-grammatical 
nature can be explained with reference to "language users' internalized 
competence and ... the shared knowledge of writer and reader" (p. 181). 
Finally, attention is paid to allusions contained (embedded) within 
reported discourse. It is noted that writers frequently manipulate the 
status of an allusion, which is particularly the case in tabloids where 
pseudo-quotes are frequent.

In Chapter 6, the author develops a model of the process whereby allusions 
are recognised and understood by readers. The author proposes a multi-
stage processing model of allusion which is based on two compulsory stages 
(recognition and inferencing) and one optional stage (appreciation of the 
writer as alluder). The reader's recognition may be aided by graphological 
marking or stylistic differences of lexis, grammar and spelling of the 
alluding unit.

The book concludes with a chapter on the functions of allusions. 
Altogether fifteen functions are identified and classified into five 
functional domains: intratextual, inter(con)textual, metatextual, 
processing, and interpersonal-affective. The section is supplemented by 
examples of allusion from yet another perspective: the mutual relationship 
between foregrounding and implicature present in the alluding units. 

EVALUATION

Lennon's book is a particularly valuable contribution to the study of news 
discourse, offering a fresh view from a multi-disciplinary perspective. In 
choosing his materials, the author makes the valid point that computerized 
searches of a corpus are problematic mainly with regard to the 
identification of instances of modified allusion and chance resemblance 
which are disambiguated by the context and the surrounding co-text. A 
personal analysis, though necessarily subjective and imperfect, is thus 
preferred, as its benefits (such as the analyst's awareness of socio-
cultural and historical context) outweigh the problems connected with 
computerized searches (a closed set of targets, the choice of targets, the 
modifications of targets, the impossibility to assess co-text and context, 
etc.).

The monograph skillfully combines the approaches of literary stylistics, 
pragmatics and cognitive linguistics. One will thus be forced to consider 
allusion with reference to such concepts as foregrounding (originating in 
the functionalist tradition of the Prague School - Mukarovský 1983[1932] 
and successfully applied in the study of media discourse by e.g. Fowler 
1991), relevance (developed by Sperber and Wilson 1995 and applied to the 
study of news headlines by Dor 2003, for example), implicature, 
inferencing, and shared knowledge. More generally, the study of allusion 
is also seen within the framework of existing theories of indirect 
language and treated alongside metaphors, idioms and word play.

The theoretical part is impressively well founded. The analysis is 
likewise thorough with the author paying meticulous attention to cross-
comparisons not only between the individual papers themselves (as is 
common practice in news discourse analysis, cf. Fowler 1991), but also 
between different sections of one and the same paper (because the location 
at which a particular form occurs in a newspaper has a direct relevance 
for its validity, cf. Jucker 1992). Moreover, the author takes into 
account the additional complication of the occurrence of allusions in 
reported discourse - such embedded forms have to be treated differently 
from the surrounding co-text because they are attributable to another 
voice (real or fictitious).

The analysis combines a minute analysis of linguistic forms on all levels 
(phonological, morphological, lexical, as well as syntactic) with an 
elaborate functional analysis. The author emphasises that allusion is 
multi-functional. To paraphrase his findings in terms of Halliday's (1978) 
functions, allusion can be seen as operating on all three levels: 
ideational, interpersonal and textual. Ideationally, it communicates 
meaning (which sometimes may not be communicated directly, e.g. for 
political reasons). Interpersonally, allusion depends on the co-
construction of this meaning by the reader, relying on his or her 
recognition of the allusion which triggers the process of inferencing and 
drawing parallels between the alluding text in praesentia and the alluded 
text in absentia. Textually, such a process is based on an intertextual 
comparison and the drawing on background and shared cultural knowledge. 
The interactive aspect of allusion is also indicated by the possibility of 
a bond between writer and reader being created (sometimes evoking what the 
author calls a groan response on the part of the reader after recognising 
and appreciating an allusion), and may have a strong aesthetic function 
(cf. Jacobson 1990).

Last but not least, the theoretical issues discussed in the book are 
supplemented with a wealth of well-chosen examples which are explained in 
full detail with reference to their context and the target texts. As a 
result, the book makes for fascinating reading and those interested in 
this area will certainly want to come back to it. The only slight drawback 
is the absence of an index to help locate the many issues (puns, word 
play, morphological adaptation, blends, non-words, etc.) which, as a 
result of the author's complex cross-analysis, appear in different 
sections throughout the book.

REFERENCES

Dor, Daniel (2003) 'On newspaper headlines as relevance optimizers'. 
Journal of Pragmatics 35: 695-721.

Fowler, Roger (1991) Language in the News. Discourse and Ideology in the 
Press. London and New York: Routledge.

Halliday, M. A. K. (1978) Language as a Social Semiotic: The Social 
Interpretation of Language and Meaning. London: Edward Arnold.

Jacobson, Roman (1960) 'Closing statement: linguistics and poetics' in 
Sebeok, Thomas A. (ed.) Style in Language. Cambridge, Mass: the MIT Press, 
350-77.
Jucker, Andreas (1992) Social Stylistics: Syntactic Variation in British 
Newspapers, Walter de Gruyer.

Mukarovský, Jan (1983[1932]) Standard Language and Poetic Language. In: 
Vachek, Josef and Libuse Dusková (eds.) Praguiana. Amsterdam: John 
Benjamins Publishing Company, 165-185.

Sperber, Dan and Deirdre Wilson (1995) Relevance: Communication and 
Cognition. 2nd ed. Oxford UK / Cambridge USA: Blackwell. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Jan Chovanec teaches linguistics at Masaryk University's Department of 
English and American Studies in Brno in the Czech Republic. He completed 
his Ph.D. thesis on the description of the case of the British nanny 
Louise Woodward as reported in the British press, with a focus on the 
manifestation of the interpersonal function. His primary research interest 
concerns the language of print media (cohesion analysis, naming analysis, 
language play in tabloids, involvement phenomena in the press).





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