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Abstract
The task of developing a unified pragmatics of emotive communication poses many interesting challenges for future research. This paper outlines some areas in which more work
could be done to help coordinate present linguistic research. After briefly reviewing some
pioneering historical work on language and affect, the paper discusses the following concepts,
all of which seem to be in need of further clarification: emotive meaning, involvement,
emotive markedness, degree of emotive divergence, objects of emotive choice, loci of
emotive choice, and outer vs. inner deixis. Competing categories of emotive devices in current studies of language and affect are reviewed, and a simplified framework is proposed,
consisting of: (1) evaluation devices, (2) proximity devices, (3) specificity devices, (4) evidentiality devices, (5) volitionality devices, and (6) quantity devices. It is argued that only
with consensual categories and objects of analysis can investigators start focusing on, and
comparing findings about, emotive linguistic phenomena from a unified point of view.
Finally, some distinctions between potential perspectives, units, and loci of emotive analysis
are proposed, and the paper concludes with a call for increased discussion of how research on
language and affect might be better coordinated in the future.
1. Introduction:
Presently, a vast amount of linguistic data on language and affect is being collected in pragmatics that cannot be fully compared or interpreted due to the lack of
a unified, overriding conceptual framework. If we look at the growing body of literature on language and affect, it is difficult to discern a consensual theory, a consensual object of investigation, or a consensual analytical methodology. Investigators
* We would like to express our thanks to Horst Amdt and Klaus HSlker for their valuable comments
on the line of reasoning presented in this paper, and free them, at the same time, from any responsibility
for deficits in the final product. Parts of the paper are adapted from a forthcoming book by Richard
W. Janney entitled Speech and Affect: Emotive Uses of English.
Stankiewicz (1964: 267) used the expression fuzzy periphery to refer to the no mans land of
emotive language. His original statement was: I see no reason . why we should be reluctant to admit
the existence of a fuzzy periphery.
0378-2166/94/$07.00 0 1994 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved
SSDI 0378-2166(94)00040-L
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we will review some old and new approaches to language and affect that seem to be
of potential interest in developing what we would like to call a pragmatics of emotive communication; second, we will discuss some conceptual and methodological
constraints on current research on language and affect, pointing out some underlying
linguistic issues at stake in this research; and third, we will present a rough sketch of
some conceptual distinctions that we feel could be helpful in approaching emotive
communication from a unified, pragmatic point of view. The paper is not programmatic in spirit, but exploratory. That is, it is not an attempt to impose our own
sketchy, preliminary ideas about various problems that seem (to us) to need to be
dealt with in present studies of language and affect on others working in this area,
but rather an attempt to clear ground for further discussion, in the hope of encouraging suggestions about how studies of language and affect might be better coordinated
in the future.
I .I. Some preliminary definitions
I .I .I. The emotive capacity
One of our underlying assumptions will be that all competent native speakers of a
given language possess what might metaphorically be called an emotive capacity:
that is, certain basic, conventional, learned, affective-relational communicative skills
that help them interact smoothly, negotiate potential interpersonal conflicts, and
reach different ends in speech. These skills are related, to performances of linguistic
and other activities that broadly can be interpreted as signs of affect, or as indices
of speakers feelings, attitudes, or relational orientations toward their topics, their
partners, and/or their own acts of communication in different situations. Successful
interaction depends to a certain extent on a mastery of these conventional skills. We
will assume that explaining what the emotive capacity is, where it comes from, and
how it is used to reach different ends in linguistic interaction, are fitting goals of
pragmatic research.
1.1.2. The notion of afSect
The decision to focus on language and affect implies some body of underlying
assumptions about what affect is to begin with. The great diversity of phenomena
studied under the rubric of affect in different branches of science underscores the
truism that affect means many things to many people - not only across disciplines
but also within disciplines, among different investigators. Like other terms used in
science, the term affect is a figure of speech, a metaphor, which, reified by scientific practice, enables us to approach certain ranges of conceptualized phenomena as
independent objects of study, and define certain other ranges of phenomena as
beyond the scope of investigation (cf. Sarbin, 1986: 87).
Western psychologists commonly distinguish between feelings, a broad, complex
class of subjective personal sensations or states of inner physiological arousal (cf.
Besnier, 1990: 421); emotions, a restricted subset of empirically investigable phenomena within this general class that are relatively transitory, of a certain intensity,
and are attached to, or triggered by, particular objects, ideas, or outer incentive
328
events (cf. Kagan, 1978: 1617); moods, which are said to be of longer duration
than emotions, and not necessarily attached to specific inner states or definite objects
(cf. Davidson, 1984: 321); and attitudes, or transitory feeling states with partly
uncontrollable subconscious psychobiological components and partly controllable
expressive components, which are said to be instrumental in maintaining social and
psychological equilibrium and adapting to different situations (cf. Plutchik and
Kellerman, 1980: 30).
The term affect is usually reserved for feeling states that are ascribed to others
on the basis of their observable behavior in different situations (cf. Besnier, 1990:
421). In cognitive psychology, notions of affect range from hot to cold extremes
(cf. Mandler, 1990: 21). At the hotter end, affect is used almost synonymously
with emotion, as defined above. At the cooler end, it is used to refer simply to
human preferences, attitudes, or likes and dislikes, and to adaptive choices related to
these (cf. Mandler, 1990: 21-22). This latter perspective, which is incidentally of
great potential interest for pragmatics, sees affect as a state of interpretive action and
arousal that results from goal-directed cognitive appraisals of perceptions of inner
and outer processes in different contexts (cf. Lazarus, 1982: 1024; Lewis et al.,
1984: 271).
In linguistics, on the other hand, the term affect is often used simply as a broad
synonym for feeling, and is regarded as subsuming not only traditional psychological notions of emotion, mood, and attitude, but also notions of character and personality, and notions related to interactional linguistic phenomena such as masking,
hedging, undercutting, and so forth (cf. Irvine, 1982: 32; Ochs, 1986: 254; Ochs
and Schieffelin, 1989: 7). In the following pages, in keeping with standard linguistic usage, we will use the term affect in this latter, broader sense - apologizing to
psychologists in advance for blurring important theoretical distinctions - as an overriding, generic term for linguistically expressed feelings, attitudes, and relational dispositions of all types (cf. Ochs, 1989).
I .I .3. Emotive communication
We would like to suggest that pragmatics should focus broadly on what Marty
(1908), at the turn of the century, called emotive communication: the intentional,
strategic signalling of affective information in speech and writing (e.g., evaluative
dispositions, evidential commitments, volitional stances, relational orientations,
degrees of emphasis, etc.) in order to influence partners interpretations of situations
and reach different goals. Marty contrasted the notion of emotive communication
to the notion of emotional communication, which he regarded as a type of spontaneous, unintentional leakage or bursting out of emotion in speech (cf. Amdt and Janney, 1991). According to Marty, emotive communication influences partners interpretations of situations by suggesting what he called states of affairs that coincide
with ones own declared feelings and desires in the widest sense (Zustanden, die
dem kundgegebenen eigenen Ftlhlen und Wollen im weitesten Sinne entsprechen)
(1908: 364). Martys wording is important here, because it underscores the notion
that emotive communication, by this definition, has no automatic or necessary relation to real inner affective states. Rather, it is related to self-presentation, and it is
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330
and in the entangled problem of connotation (for a good historical survey on connotation, see Garza-Cuarbn, 199 1).
If we look for theories that explicitly make the linguistic expression of affect a
central concern, however, the list of possible candidates becomes shorter: we can
find significant forerunners not only in linguistics, but also in rhetoric, philosophy of
language, and linguistic stylistics. In particular, Aristotles rhetoric, Martys philosophy of language, Ballys linguistic stylistics, and Prague functionalism offer precious insights. Each of these approaches is famous, and at the same time extremely
complex, making any attempt to explain the many subtle differences between their
underlying views of language and affect potentially a subject of volumes of philological and exegetical analysis. Here, we will simply mention, in a very cursory way,
some reasons for their relevance.
2.1. Rhetoric:
Aristotle
perspective
If pragmatics - envisioned here as dealing with the whole reality of communication, including its emotive aspects - could choose a prestigious ancestor, it should be
ancient rhetoric. Aristotles Rhetoric can be seen as a metapragmatic treatise on the
construction of the shared knowledge necessary for effective emotive communication. Starting from what today would be regarded as a social psychological perspective, Aristotle analyzes different kinds of argumentation which must fit different
types of audiences. In Rhetoric I, (A), 3, 1358b, perhaps an original source of the
recurring semiotic triads in philosophy and linguistics throughout the ages, Aristotle
states that discourse is comprised of three fundamental elements - the speaker, the
topic, and the hearer.
In the present century, Aristotles rhetoric of persuasive discourse has been
pursued in Perelman and Olbrechts-Tytecas Trait& de largumentation.
La nouvelle
rhetorique (1958), a work of great potential interest for pragmatics, which focuses
on complex emotive strategies stemming from speakers continuous efforts to adapt
to their addressees. Interestingly, some basic aspects of Giles and Couplands
(1991: 60ff.) accommodation theory are anticipated by, and subtly analyzed in,
the Traits. The main problem dealt with by Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca is how
speakers build up a consensus, or a communion of minds, with addressees through
the strength of their arguments, and by the capacity of these to trigger the
addressees emotive participation.
What makes the classical rhetorical perspective a refined precedent of a pragmatics of emotive communication is mainly its strong intersubjective orientation.
In classical oratory, emotive activities are regarded as semiotic phenomena with
communicative potential, regardless of whether they are sincere or not, and
regardless of which mode (verbal, prosodic, or kinesic) they are performed in. It
could be claimed, in fact, that emotive uses of language have been studied
throughout most of Western intellectual history as rhetorical techniques. Rhetorical communication and emotive communication share some crucial features: both
trigger a surplus de sense, both presuppose shared knowledge on the speakers and
hearers parts, and both rely on the hearers cooperation and willingness to under-
331
take the inferential steps necessary to give utterances intended meanings beyond
their literal ones.
One interesting goal for a pragmatics of emotive communication would be to
begin attempting to account for emotive rhetorical techniques from a new, more systematic, unified, point of view. This would require, among other things, rethinking
and reinterpreting many important rhetorical insights of the past, and perhaps
re-evaluating some modem contributions in this area such as Lausbergs (1960) and
Perelman and Olbrechts-Tytecas (1958). Helpful recent research in this direction
has been done by Mortara-Garavelli (1988).
2.2. Philosophy of language: Anton Marty
Anton Martys (1908) discussion of emotive ;iujerungen, at the turn of the
century, may be regarded as an important pioneering philosophical contribution to
later linguistic studies of emotive communication.2 To Marty, as said earlier (see
section 1.3), we owe the insight that we must first distinguish between emotional
(cathartic, expressive) and emotive (instigative, appellative) affective uses of speech
before we can begin to investigate language and affect from a systematic pragmatic
point of view. In the present connection, Martys main contribution was his discussion of what he called interest-demanding (interesseheischende) utterances: that
is, utterances signaling momentary evaluative stances or volitional states, which are
performed by speakers to strategically guide partners attention and influence their
behavior. For this category, he invented the term emotive utterances, apologetically adding that One must excuse the new term on the grounds that in present linguistic usage, no better term for the whole class is available, as words like proclamation, request, wish, command, etc. all have a narrower meaning (Man
entschuldige den neuen Terminus damit, da8 im bisherigen Sprachgebrauch ein fur
die ganze Klasse passender nicht vorhanden ist, da die Namen: Ausrufung, Frage,
Wunsch, Befehlsatz usw. alle einen engeren Bedeutungsumfang haben) (1908:
275). Later, Btihler (1934) integrated Martys distinction between emotional and
emotive uses of language into his notions of the Ausdruck and Appell functions of
language.
According to Marty, emotive communication is rooted in the relationship between
explicit forms of linguistic expression and their potential implicit significance for
interpreters. Marty noted that speakers habitually modify explicit forms of linguistic
expression in order to emotively color them and steer interpretations of their
implicit, intended significance (1908: 524ff.). The linguistic activities involved in
emotive communication, he said, are not cathartic in nature, but intentional, informative (Mitteillung), persuasive (uberzeugung), and/or coercive (Beeinflussung). An
utterance, he argued, is like a stenograph or a rough sketch of an idea: while the
basic conceptual coordinates for interpreting it are provided by the linguistic code,
* Martys philosophy
was much more linguistically
as is evidenced by the title of Martys major work,
oriented,
for example,
332
C. Cap,
the task of filling the utterance into a meaningful cognitive-emotive whole is left
largely up to the interpreter (1908: 145). In interpreting an utterance, he said, the
partner must assign relative importance to the concepts referred to, and must reconstruct most of the implicit relations between these concepts and the speaker, the
topic, and the context in which the utterance is made. Inferences about such implicit
relations are influenced, in part, he maintained, by the form of the utterance. He concluded that the potential emotive interpretations of utterances are restricted by the
perspectives on events that the utterances explicitly sketch out.
In Martys view, although notions like, for example, You must do x, I want
you to do x, Please do x, It would be nice if you did x, Ill be unhappy if you
dont do x, Would you like to do x? , etc., may all perhaps potentially be in mind
at the moment that a speaker makes an utterance meant to express a general idea
like do x, the stenographic nature of utterances themselves requires speakers to
select only one version. Insofar as only one version can be uttered explicitly, the
others remain implicit. Marty claimed that for this reason, it is constantly necessary
for speakers to reduce complex thoughts into simplified, explicit verbal sketches on
the one hand; and by the reverse logic, it is constantly necessary for partners to
expand simplified verbal sketches into complex thoughts on the other. From this, he
concluded that the literal information that passes back and forth during conversation
is thus inevitably always only a small, selective percentage of what potentially may
be meant by the speaker, and what potentially may be understood by the partner
(1908: 168).
Emotive expressions, he said further, can be distinguished into two main subclasses: (1) those related broadly to evaluation, e.g., expressions of acceptance
or rejection, agreement or denial, like or dislike, etc., and (2) those related to what
he termed interest, e.g., expressions of wishes, desires, and feelings related
to these (1908: 276).4 He regarded this second category as linguistically more
complex than the first one. In sections 3, 4 and 5, in which we discuss the categorization of emotive communicative activities in psychology and linguistics, we will
see that Marty seems to have been quite correct. His category of interesseheischende _&&erungen seems to have certain similarities with the psycholinguistic
notion of the motivational potency of utterances (see section 4) and with notions
of linguistic involvement (see section 6), both of which are associated with a
multitude of linguistic activities. A pragmatics of emotive communication can
scarcely ignore Martys contribution to later distinctions in Btihlers Sprachtheorie,5
3 Marty would not have subscribed to the view of language as a conduit of meaning.
4 Martys sub-class
of evaluative
phenomena
corresponds
roughly with psychological
concepts of
positive and negative attitudes and their intensity.
His sub-class
of interest-related
phenomena
corresponds roughly with psychological
concepts of individual conation or motivation and its urgency.
5 In a review of Marty (1908) Biihler remarked that whereas Wundt concentrated
on language mainly
as Ausdruck (emphasizing
emotional
expressivity),
and Husserl, in his strong opposition
to Wundt,
focused mainly on language as Darstellung (emphasizing
the referential function), Marty dealt with the
Ausdruck (emotional)
and Appell (emotive)
functions,
but ignored aspects of language
related to
Darstellung.
function
333
(see sec-
334
the addressee (cf. Segre, 1985: 314), and are related to subcodes and registers of
language that project different tacit definitions of the partners social status, professional affiliations, respective cultural levels, and so forth.6
Bally further distinguished between two types of formal expressive processes
@rocedesformels) and linguistic features connected with these: first, what he calls
direct processes, which involve lexical choices; and second, indirect processes,
which involve prosodic and syntactic choices that go beyond single words (1970:
250ff. [ 19091). Ballys exemplifications of these two types of expressive processes
and their formal features deserve careful attention in modern pragmatics. There is
not enough room in these sketchy notes to fully discuss Ballys contribution to the
understanding of affective aspects of language, but it is worth emphasizing that
Ballys approach is not restricted to the lexicon. His notion of modality in the
analysis of sentences is an important step that clears the way for the representation
of ways in which speakers subjective attitudes are formally embedded in
sentences.
According to Bally, a sentence is comprised of a modus (similar to the modern
notion of modality) and a dictum (similar to the notion of propositional content).
The modus, which is expressed by verbs of propositional attitude like think,
rejoice, hope, etc., is the heart of the sentence (cest lame de la phrase)
(1965 : 36 [ 1925]), and represents the speakers attitude toward the propositional
content, or the dictum, in Ballys terms, in its active, operative mode. The link
between the intellectual and emotive modes, rediscovered within the theoretical
unit sentence (see section 7.7.2), finds its formal abstract representation here.
Starting from this conception, Bally develops a refined analysis of different types
of dislocation (la phrase segmentee), which, in many respects, anticipates both the
Prague studies of the thematic progression of texts in theme-rheme, and modern
pragmatic analyses of right- and left-dislocation.
335
336
22 (1994) 325-373
years
in Prague
conjectures
about
his
337
tion between emotive phenomena which are contextually conditioned and emotive
features which are embedded in the code (1964: 266). Here again, it could be argued,
we find a certain lack of clarity with respect to differences between the expressive
(subjective, personal) and emotive (intersubjective, interpersonal) functions of signs of
affect in speech. Stanckiewicz himself seems to have recognized the problem of the
failing interpersonal orientation of a strictly code-centered approach: practically
every word can be endowed with emotive connotations if it is placed in an appropriate
social situation or verbal context (1964: 242). The history of concepts of expressivity and emotivity in the Prague functionalist approach has been dealt with in detail
recently by Volek (1987).
Finally, it remains to be said that, over the years, the Prague School linguists have
raised many important foundational questions about relations between language and
affect, some of which are still waiting for adequate answers. One problem that especially needs to be addressed - which is related to the concept of markedness as first
defined in Prague phonology, and is potentially very important for studies of emotive communication (cf. Hiibler, 1987, and see section 6 below) - is: from where
must we begin in order to detect, and make inferences about, emotive connotations
in the first place? As Bally said, two opposing tendencies appear to be operative in
expressivity (les tendances opposees de lexpressivite): expectation (lattente) and
surprise (la surprise) (1965: 69 [1932]). The crucial point generally seems to be the
divergent choice from some type of expectation. We will go into this matter in more
detail in section 6.
338
C. Cafi,
R.W. Janney
I Journal
of Pragmatics
22 (1994) 325-373
Almost fifty years ago, Black (1948: 112-l 13) argued that confusion in
approaches to emotive language in America during the 1920s to 40s were due
mainly to the lack of a consistent and coherent theory of emotive meaning ; and
today, we still lack linguistically useful theories of emotive meaning (cf. Volek,
1987: 249). As a consequence, linguists studying emotive communication are sometimes forced to adopt (or adapt) interpretive categories derived from Western psychological notions of underlying basic dimensions of affect (cf. Brown and
Gilman, 1960; Wiener and Mehrabian, 1968; Dittmann, 1972; Arndt and Janney,
1983; Brown and Levinson, 1987; Dane& this issue).
Gaps between psychological and linguistic approaches to affect, however,
presently make it difficult to imagine directly transferring concepts from psychology
into linguistics without first considering their compatibility, descriptive adequacy,
and explanatory power in the linguistic context. Psychological studies often do not
take language and interaction fully into consideration; and linguistic studies, on the
other hand, often shy away from psychology. Although potentially useful models of
emotive meaning were devised many years ago in psycholinguistics (cf. Osgood et
al. 1957; Davitz, 1964, etc.), there has not yet been much apparent interest in incorporating these into current studies of emotive communication. As a result, the work
of many linguists who presently are most actively addressing issues related to language and affect tends to remain psychologically rather uninformed.
3.2. Dimensions of affect in psychology
In psychology, there is a tradition of tripartite distinctions between metaphorical
basic dimensions of affect reaching back to about the turn of the century (cf. Gallois,
this issue) (see Table 1). The term dimension was first used in connection with affect
in studies of mood in the 1950s (cf. Nowlis and Nowlis, 1956). It was originally a
means of suggesting that affective states are not static, stable mental things (e.g., fixed
qualities, traits, or characteristics of mind), but dynamic, gradient mental processes that
must be represented and measured on variable, more/less scales (cf. Osgood et al.,
1957). Western psychologists tend to agree about three broad basic dimensions of affective experience: (1) a positive or negative evaluative dimension, (2) a power, control, or
potency dimension, and (3) an activity, arousal or intensity dimension (see Table 1).
The psychological view, at the most reduced level, is that people typically respond
affectively to objects of appraisal9 (if and when they respond) mainly by feeling positively or negatively evaluatively inclined toward them, and by feeling in some sense
either in control of them or not in control of them; and these affective orientations
tend to vary in intensity or strength. The resilience of psychological distinctions such
as these for the past several decades seems to argue in favor of using related dimensions, at least, for comparing assumptions about emotive meaning in linguistics.0
The issue of objects of emotive appraisal is dealt with in section 8.
lo Osgood et al.s (1957) categories of evaluation, potency, and activity
Table I, as these have been the most widely recognized
psycholinguistic
have been subject to the most rigorous empirical testing.
339
Table 1
Basic psychological dimensions of affect
Authors
(+/-) Evaluation
(+/-) Potency
(+/-) Activity
Wundt (1912)
Osgood et al. (1957)
Leary (1957)
Gough (1957)
Brown and Gilman (1960)
Davitz (1964)
Averill ( 1975)
Russell (1978)
Amdt and Janney (1983)
Daly et al. (1983)
Amdt and Janney (1987)
Russell (1991)
(+/-) pleasantness
(+/-) evaluation
(+/-) like
(+/-) affiliation
(+/-) solidarity
(+/-) valence
(+/-) affect
(+/-) affect
(+/-) ego-threat
(+/-) affect
(+/-) affect
(+/-) pleasure
(or affiliation)
(+/-) relaxation
(+/-) potency
(+/-) dominance
(+/-) power
(+/-) power
(+/-) strength
(+/-) control
(+/-) agressiveness
(+/-) ego-nearness
(+/-) control
(+/-) assertiveness
(+/-) dominance
(or power)
(+/-) arousal
(+/-) activity
(+/-) activity
(+/-) intensity
(+/-) intensity
(+/-) ego-involvement
(+/-) intensity
(+/-) intensity
(+/-) arousal
(or activity)
340
Table 2
Linguistic emotive categories
Authors
(+/-) Evaluation
(+/-) Potency
(+/-) Activity
intensifiers
_~~ affectkeys_----___---____----__-
Hymes (1972)
Gumperz (1977)
intensifying keys
specifying keys
involvement/detachment
Chafe (1982)
emphatic particles
focus: indices of
linguistic distancing
from concrete events
Irvine (1982)
emphatic particles
loaded terms
intensity maximizers
intensity minimizers
Labov (1984)
_-_-involvement
Tannen (1984)
___~____~_____~~_____
focus: indices of
emotional interest in, or
identification with, the
topic, the needs of the
partner, or the
interaction itself
Ochs (1986)
affect specifiers
affect intensifiers
commitment or
position with respect
to the message
Schiffrin (1987)
focus: indices of
confidence or
uncertainty
involvement:
attachment or
detachment vis-a-vis
the speech act
Hiibler (1987)
focus: indices of an
emotive identification
with the speech act
Volek (1987)
evaluative excitizers
341
Table 2 (cont.)
Authors
(+/-) Evaluation
(+/-) Activity
(+/-) Potency
Fairclough (1988)
affect minimizers
affect maximizers
-------------stancemarkers--_---------affect markers evidentiality markers
focus: indices of
positive or negative
affect
@hs~dSchieffelin
focus: indices of
certainty or doubt
-------_---------___---affectkey~-----------------------
(1989)
affect specifiers
affect intensifiers
Wowk (1989)
intensity of affect
__
topical involvement
focus: indices of
weak/strong attentional
orientation to the topic
interactional
involvement
focus: indices of
weak/strong attentional
orientation to the speech
situation and/or the
participants
Besnier (1990)
positive/negative
affect
directionality of affect
focus: indices of self
vs. outside focus of a
message
intensity of affect
342
Table 2 (cont.)
Authors
(+/-)
Evaluation
Lutz (1990)
(+/-)
(+/-)
Potency
personalization
Activity
of affect
focus: indices of
personal distance vs.
nondistance
Amdt and Janney
(1991)
value-ladenness
assertiveness
intensity
focus: indices of
confidence or uncertainty
focus:
weak
ment
indices of strong or
affective
involve-
Table 2 shows that there are currently many competing emotive categories in linguistics, and these do not always refer to exactly the same things (cf. Besnier, this
issue). This lack of consensus at the categorical level, it can be assumed, reflects a
corresponding lack of consensus at the epistemological level. Which broad categories of phenomena are currently being studied, and how are these being conceptualized and labeled for analytical purposes (see section 7)?
Linguists presently appear to distinguish most clearly between emotive categories
related to the psycholinguistic dimensions of evaluation and activity in Table 1:
that is, between (1) categories related to positivelnegative orientations, e.g.,
notions of affect specifying keys (Hymes, 1972; Gumperz, 1977), loaded terms
(Irvine, 1982), affect specifiers (Ochs, 1986; Ochs and Schieffelin, 1989), evaluative excitizers (Volek, 1987), positive/negative affect markers (Biber and Finegan, 1989; Besnier, 1990), value-ladenness choices (Amdt and Janney, 1991), etc.,
and (2) categories related to morelless intense orientations, e.g., notions of intensifiers (Labov and Waletzky, 1967), affect intensifying keys (Hymes, 1972;
Gumperz, 1978), emphatic particles (Chafe, 1982; Irvine, 1982), intensity maximizers and minimizers (Labov, 1984), affect intensifiers (Ochs, 1986; Ochs and
Schieffelin, 1989), unspecific excitizers and intensifiers (Volek, 1987), affect
maximizers and minimizers (Fairclough, 1988), the intensity of affect (Wowk,
1989; Besnier, 1990; Arndt and Janney, 1991), etc.
With respect to the potency dimension, however, which is the central psycholinguistic motivational category in Table 1,I there seems to be less agreement. Here, a
variety of phenomena are presently being studied, and it is not clear whether all of
them can, or even should, be included within a single category. From a psychological standpoint, at any rate, it can be said that most of these phenomena are related in
some sense to approach and avoidance behavior. Leaving current linguistic notions
of involvement temporarily out of consideration (see section 5), we can outline four
broad linguistic categories that are commonly associated with the potency dimenI According
phenomenon,
connections.
343
sion: (1) categories related to near/far orientations, e.g., notions of the distancing of language from concrete events (Chafe, 1982), the speakers distance from
the truth of the proposition conveyed (Ochs, 1986), the speakers position with
respect to the message (Schiffrin, 1987), the speakers degree of personal distance
from the message (Lutz, 1990), the directionality of affect (Besnier, 1990), etc.; (2)
categories related to clearlvague orientations, e.g., notions of clear/vague signals
(Wiener and Mehrabian, 1968), clear vs. fuzzy uses of words (G. Lakoff, 1972),
particulizers (Volek, 1987), linguistic specificity phenomena (Arndt and Janney,
1991), etc.; (3) categories related to confdentldoubtjhl orientations, e.g., notions
of the speakers cognitive commitment to the message (Schriffrin, 1987; Katriel
and Dascal, 1989), modality markers (Chafe and Nichols, 1986), evidential certainty and doubt markers (Biber and Finegan, 1989), etc.; and (4) categories related
to self-assertivelunassertive orientations, e.g., notions of politeness principles
(Leech, 1983), supportive strategies (Amdt and Janney, 1985), indirectness
(Blum-Kulka, 1987), face saving strategies (Brown and Levinson, 1987), relational work (Watts, 1989), self vs. outside focus of the message (Besnier, 1990),
linguistic assertiveness (Arndt and Janney, 1991), and so forth.
In Table 3, the categories above are compared with the psychological categories
discussed earlier. Are they finally compatible? The answer to this question seems to
be a qualified yes, but only in a general sense. In order to analyze specific
instances of emotive communication in terms of categories such as those listed in
Table 3, a pragmatics of emotive communication seems to need various conceptual
and methodological bridges: first, from a linguistic standpoint, it would seem that
investigators need to agree in principle about how emotively significant linguistic
contrasts are recognized as such in natural discourse (see section 6); second, emotive
categories like positive/negative, near/far, clear/vague, confident/doubtful,
self-assertive/unassertive, more/less intense, etc., need to be connected with specific types of linguistic choices (see section 7); and third - and an issue of deepest
concern from a pragmatic point of view - a systematic interpretive account of linguistic emotive choices and their inferred objects and objectives must be devised
(see section 8). Although each of these problems is naturally too complex to be adequately discussed in a paper of this length, later, we will make some modest preliminary suggestions about how these might be addressed. But before doing this, we
would like to briefly discuss the present status of the central notion of involvement
in linguistics.
344
Table 3
A comparison
Psychological
categories
of psychological
and linguistic
emotive
categories
Evaluation
Activity
Potency
Main
positive/
powerful/
contrasts
negative
unpo werful
Linguistic
categories
Evaluation
Proximity
Specificity
Evidentiality
Main
positive/
near/far
clear/vague
contrasts
negative
unaroused
Volitonality
Quantity
confident/
assertive/
more/less
doubtful
unassertive
intense
is paraphrased
by
by embarassment
345
346
C. Cafi,
of Pragmatics
22 (1994) 325-373
studying emotive communication, we deal not simply with signs, but with indices, in
Peircean terms: that is, we investigate signs which point to, or are associated with,
things that may be emotively significant, but whose significance ultimately can only
be decided on external contextual or cotextual grounds. The hypothetical, conjectural
nature of indices of affect tends to make it difficult to avoid constructing correspondingly hypothetical, conjectural typologies of emotive devices (see section 7).
As to the usefulness of employing involvement to refer to inner states, we can
note that this practice has a history in psychology, where the notion of ego-involvement has sometimes been contrasted to notions of ego-threat and ego-nearness,
and has been interpreted as a dimension of inner affect somewhat similar to Osgood
et al.s (1957) activity (cf. Amdt and Janney, 1987: 135ff.). One problem with this
idea from a pragmatic standpoint, however, is that the notion of involvement as an
inner state, like the notion of involvement as a message, is viable only as long as we
can establish inferrable connections between emotive activities and their observable
external effects. In a pragmatics analysis, as in everyday interaction, we do not usually deal with remote causes or slippery and fathomless inner states, but with
effects. A partners hypothetical inner state is a projected reality, a sort of implicature, hence defeasible, which can only be assigned by an act of inference (cf.
Sbisa, 1990). Precisely because of the potential confusion between observable outer
effects and inferrable inner states, the notion of involvement lends itself easily to a
sort of circularity. As Besnier (this issue: p. 285) points out, some linguists
presently seem to assume that involvement is the result of the .. . use of involvement strategies, and the ... use of involvement strategies is the result of involvement. An ancient rhetorical notion lurks behind this critical remark: the notion of
emphasis (cf. Lausberg, 1960), to which modem treatments of involvement add little
additional insight.i5
In order to escape this circularity, it would perhaps be helpful to shift from a taxonomic point of view (focused on developing lists of signs of involvement), to a
functional, inferential point of view that concentrates on investigating the mechanisms involved in the construction of shared presuppositions and background expectations about others feelings and attitudes. From such a viewpoint, involvement
would be regarded as a kind of unsaid. The question would then become: what entitles hearers to abductively assign feelings of involvement to speakers? What types of
assumptions, display rules, and inferences are required?
If we were to start from this end of the problem, perhaps we could begin to provide - more than ad hoc lists of signs of involvement - lists of pragmatic constraints linked to different types of interactions and different types of texts, which
account for variations in the ways in which (and extents to which) speakers express
involvement under different conditions. Rather than starting with definitions of the
emotive meanings of signs of involvement, that is, we would simply start with
choices of words, syntactic arrangements, discourse patterns, and so forth that are
Later (see section 8.2), we suggest that in order to add anything new to ancient rhetorical treatments
of emphasis, modem approaches to involvement
will have to open up and incorporate the relevant findings of empirical social psychological
work such as Wiener and Mehrabians
(1968).
341
348
tics (see section 2.3) - that impressions of involvement result from clusters of linguistic, prosodic, and other features. Many studies mention (but few actually analyze) the importance of prosodic and other vocal activities as signals of involvement
(e.g., speech rate, frequency, rhythm; pitch prominence, contour, gradience, etc.)
(for a review, see Selting, this issue); and a few recognize the importance of kinesic
activities (e.g., gaze, facial expression, body posture) (for a review, see Arndt and
Janney, 1987). But most studies tend to focus mainly on linguistic units such as the
following: (1) channel (oral/written) (Chafe, 1983); (2) conversation (Tannen,
1984; Katriel and Dascal, 1989); (3) narrative style (Tannen, 1989); (4) utterance
(Katriel and Dascal, 1989); (5) speech act (Hubler, 1987).
The list shows that the linguistic units presently being chosen as relevant to the
study of involvement - like present definitions of involvement (see section 5.2) and
present notions of conceptual oppositions to involvement (see section 5.3) - are not
homogeneous, and share no common theoretical framework. So far so good. But if
the notion of involvement is to be incorporated into an integrative pragmatics of
emotive communication - for example, an approach like the one advocated here,
which takes psychological, linguistic, and rhetorical stylistic findings into account it is clear that precisely from a theoretical standpoint, some crucial problems need to
be clarified both at the local utterance level and at the global discourse level (see
section 7.7.2).
In particular, at the utterance level, it is important to clarify the relation between
notions of involvement and modality, on the one hand, and between notions of
involvement and felicity conditions (especially the sincerity condition of a speech
act), on the other. Also, the relation between involvement and commitment needs to
be clarified (cf. Katriel and Dascal, 1987). As is well known, the main linguistic
means of commitment in the epistemic modality are Urmsons (1952) parenthetical
verbs, and modal adverbs like probably, which modify the claim to truth of an
assertion. These are called evidentials in another tradition. If commitment is
defined as a sign of subscription (neustic in Hares terms) (cf. Hare, 1970; Lyons,
1977), then involvement, it seems, could be defined as the emotive subscription to
the utterance. However, such a definition, which is to some extent plausible, would
first have to be grounded on an empirical basis (see section 8).
At the discourse level, it is important to clarify the relation between involvement
and interaction-types and text-types, since these latter put constraints on the kind and
amount of involvement allowed. A solution might start from an emit definition of
contexts, as in sociological and anthropological work (cf. Besnier, 1990). Once
again, however, here, we face the problem of the margins of freedom: we can start
making inferences about partners behavior and about their involvement only when
partners can choose among different, equally possible, communicative alternatives.
Clearly, choice is much reduced, at times approximating zero, in highly ritualized
types of interaction (e.g., institutional interaction). It seems evident that there is an
inverse relation between the strictness of the conventions that are expected to be met
in any given interaction-type, and the speakers freedom of emotive choice: the
more ritualized the interaction is, the less apparent the choices will be that trigger
emotive interpretations.
349
6. Emotive contrasts
Another step toward developing a unified pragmatics of emotive communication
is to agree about how emotive activities are recognized and interpreted as such to
begin with. What constitutes an emotively significant linguistic contrast? The way
this question is answered has important implications for how we finally represent
emotive contrasts as objects of analysis, and how we explain them from a systematic
point of view.
6.1.
Divergence
I7 Selting (1985: 180) defines a style shift as the alternation of one speech style with another speech
style in the context of the same communicative event.
s Such activities are dealt with in rhetoric under the concept of style (L. elocutio, utterance, expression; G. lexis, speech, diction, word; G. phrasis, way of speaking). The categories of classical
rhetorical stylistics - (1) position, (2) repetition, (3) quantity, (4) appel, and (5) substitution, as Plett
(1991: 28) says, are essentially categories of linguistic divergence: that is, categories of variational possibilities in utterances or sentences, in which different grammatically definable elements are respectively
(1) rearranged, (2) repeated (3), expanded or compressed, (4) adjusted in some sense, and/or (5)
replaced in order to create different persuasive emotive effects. The first four categories, usually referred
to as the figures, consist mainly of variational possibilities in which words preserve what Lanham calls
their ordinary meanings, but are placed in significant arrangements of some kind (1969: 116). The
last category, usually referred to as the tropes, consists mainly of uses of words to suggest things
other than their ordinary meanings, as in metaphor (1969: 116). Rhetorical stylistics could thus be
regarded, in the present connection, as an early approach to studying techniques for producing emotively
marked, surprising or divergent patterns in discourse (cf. Fraser, 1980: 349).
350
of Pragmatics
22 (1994) 325-373
and leads to fresh interpretive hypotheses based on new assumptions (cf. Janney,
1992: 470-473).19
6.2. Markedness
A methodological problem that has never been fully resolved in studies of divergent uses of language (whether in rhetorical stylistics, linguistic stylistics, sociolinguistics, or modem discourse analysis), is the problem of the unmarked, neutral form:
the standard of comparison against which a linguistic activity can be said to constitute an emotively significant contrast (cf. Caffi, 1992: 273-275). Assuming, with
Kasher (1984: 68), that what we are looking for, from a descriptive point of view,
are contrasts between linguistic alternatives that are in some sense diRerent while
essentially similar, we must specify what such linguistic choices vary in relation to.
Sapirs (1927: 893) solution to this problem, which has greatly influenced American functional linguists, but which also has a long, independent tradition in the
Prague School concept of markedness (see section 2.4),20 was to suggest that the
analysis of emotive features of discourse must begin by focusing on variations, however minimal, from what he called nuclear patterns of behavior.2 Sapir claimed that
we cannot adequately represent emotive contrasts without first, in every instance,
assigning some type of baseline or background to the activities in question, and then
noting degrees, or positing scales, of divergence or markedness in relation to this
background.22 In Sapirs view, in order for a description of an emotive contrast to
represent what really matters emotively - that is, the emotively relevant variation in
the perceived situation, as opposed to the individual token activity per se - a form of
representation must be developed that focuses on, or somehow captures, the relaIn this connection, Van Dijk and Kintsch (1983: 93) remark that the divergent characteristics of
unexpected utterances also have important implications for their semantic organization, their influence
on memory, and their interactive effects. It is also worth mentioning that from a literary semiotic perspective - for example, Lotmans (1970) - an artistic text is defined as informative precisely because
it surprises, escaping routines.
* The typological notion of markedness was originally developed by the Prague School linguists,
who first used it to assign marked and unmarked values to categories of phenomena in phonological
systems (cf. Trubetzkoy, 193 l), and later used it to describe categories of morphosyntactic and semantic
phenomena (cf. Jakobson, 1932).
? The notion of nuclear patterns has a long history in linguistics, which cannot be dealt with in detail
here. It may be noted, however, that in prosodies, nuclear patterning has been used as a metaphor for
certain core features of intonation (cf. Trager and Smith, 1949; Chomsky and Halle, 1968). In linguistic
stylistics, it has been used as a logical or statistical norm for identifying so-called deviations among
pre-selected linguistic features of texts (cf. Darbyshire, 1971; Akhmanova, 1976). In the Prague School
tradition, it has sometimes been used as a metaphor for unmarked syntactic patterns against which
distinctive features or disruptions of normal word order are identified (cf. Jakobson, 1960; Stankiewicz,
1964; Volek, 1987). And in some sociolinguistic work, it provides the unmarked, neutral baseline
condition against which emotive features of speech like emphasis and intensity are said to be defined
as marked for affect (cf. Labov, 1984).
22 Sapir regarded this as essentially a conventional linguistic background (1927: 893). The following
discussion attempts to show that emotive contrasts can be defined in relation to contextual and cotextual
backgrounds as well.
22 (1994) 325-373
351
23 Pilot experiments with students reported in Garfinkel (1967) provide many examples of the importance of this point. In one experiment, Garfinkel sent students home with the instruction to be more
polite than usual with their parents, and note the results. The students reports overwhelmingly showed
that their polite behavior was interpreted in the intimate, family context, as an attack. The parents consensus responses, in cases where it did not stop, were, in this order, and with increasing intensity: (1) is
something wrong?, (2) why are you doing this?, (3) youre trying to make me mad! [breaking off
contact]. In these cases, it was not the polite behavior itself that caused the problem, but the divergence
from the parents contextual behavioral expectations (see the discussion of contextual schemata in section 3.2.1).
24 Here, for lack of space, we will not go into the interesting motivational and attitudinal processes
involved in the perception of emotive contrasts. These are discussed, however, in Amdt and Janney
(1987: 63-70).
25 For example, many techniques dealt with in classical rhetorical stylistics under the term dispositio
(cf. Plett, 1991), and some phenomena dealt with in modem discourse studies of foregrounding, topicalization, left/right dislocation, etc., depend indirectly on linguistic anticipatory schemata for their
tertium comparationis (cf. Prince, 1981; Given, 1984; Horn, 1991). Without notions of normal syntactic patterning, that is, they could not be defined as objects of analysis. The same is true of many modem studies of emotive prosody (see Selting, this issue).
352
x6 Many anthropological
linguists, most recently Besnier (1990, and in this issue), have pointed out that
global assumptions
are highly culture-bound.
Hence, any approach based on assumptions
such as those
described here must be especially careful about making claims to universal applicability.
This has been
a source of recent criticism of Brown and Levinsons
(1987) theory of universals of politeness (cf. Janney and Amdt, 1993).
* Situational assumptions
may be based on knowledge
of generalized
others and how they might be
expected to act in different situations (see global assumptions),
or on knowledge
of specific partners
and their previous behavior in similar situations.
28 The lack of a direct connection
to specific linguistic forms is viewed with suspicion by many conversation analysts, who sometimes tend to regard studies of these types of contrasts as methodologically
questionable
(see Selting, this issue).
353
the tertium comparutionis for recognizing features of discourse that are emotively
marked. The analysis focuses mainly on linguistic or other patterns that diverge from
previously established patterns (cf. Selting, in this issue). For example, against a
background of informal speech, formal speech forms a contrast; against a background of formal speech, informal speech forms a contrast; against a background of
neutral, nonevaluative language, a strongly evaluative lexical choice forms a contrast; against a background of smooth, evenly accentuated speech, unexpected
pauses, repetitions, unusually emphatic prosodic markers, etc. form contrasts, and
so on.
4.3. Degree
In addition to specifying what emotive contrasts diverge from, we must also specify how they diverge. This latter issue is complicated by the fact, pointed out by
Ruesch and Bateson (195 l), Stankiewicz (1964), Watzlawick et al. (1967), and others
long ago, that emotive contrasts are analogic, more/less phenomena, and require a
descriptive approach based on notions of gradient relationships. The issue of gradient
descriptive frameworks is discussed in passing by Labov (1984: 44), and is dealt
with in detail by Brown and Levinson (1987: 85ff.) and Given (1989). The original
discussion of gradient contrasts, however, goes back to Aristotles reflections on the
representation of rhetorical strategies in Rhetoric (330 ca. B.C.). Aristotle recognized
that different ways of expressing things often involve choices of degree rather than
of type, and he emphasized, like Sapir (1927) and the Prague functionalists later, that
the notion of variation presupposes some kind of standard - an assumptive steady
state, which is regulated by considerations of metapragmatic appropriateness, which
Latin rhetoricians called aptum and Greek rhetoricians called rrp&rov (cf. Lausberg, 1960: $1078; Mortara Garavelli, 1988: 1 15)29 - against which variations can
be recognized as distinctive features, and in terms of which they can be explained as
functional, goal-directed aspects of discourse (see the discussion in section 6.1). His
solution to this problem was to introduce the notion of matters of degree, which he
defined as follows (Rhetoric I (A), 7,1363b):
When one thing x exceeds another, y, x may be regarded as y plus something more; and the thing
exceeded, y, may be regarded as that which is included in X. Also the terms greater and more are always
relative to a less, while great and small, [and] much and little are relative to the average magnitude
of things.
354
3 Labov (1984) employs a similar line of reasoning as underpinning for the descriptions used in his
analysis of intensity markers in American black city street-talk: Intensity operates on a scale centered
about the zero, or unmarked expression, with both positive (aggravated or intensified) and negative (mitigated or minimized) poles. A feature notation with [+/-I intensity is therefore not appropriate. Instead,
1 will refer to position on an ordinal scale where features marked for intensity raise an expression to a
value greater than zero, and those marked for deintensification lower expressions to values less than
zero (1984: 44).
355
Table 4
Token features, emotive categories, and degrees of emotive markedness
Token feature
Emotive category
Morphological
choices
Evaluation
(positive)
Lexical
substitutions
Evaluation
(negative)
Terms of address
Choices of
determiners
Less +-------_---------------______-f
More
Hes fascistic
Proximity (social)
Id like you to
meet Bob
Proximity (spatial)
This idea is
interesting
Choices of verb
tense/aspect
Proximity
(temporal)
Choices of
pronouns
Specificity
Choices of modal
verbs
Modality
(confidence)
Choices of agent/
object status
Volitionality
(self-assertiveness)
Sound duration
Quantity
Prosodic stress
Quantity
Lexical repetition
Quantity
COME!
356
Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi, 1994), the emotional lexicon (cf. Lutz, 1982; Jefferson, 1984), lexical substitutions,
and so forth, it potentially
includes all discourse
activities that can be interpreted as indices of pleasure or displeasure,
agreement or
disagreement,
like or dislike, and so forth, e.g.: smiling vs. frowning facial expressions, friendly vs. hostile voice qualities, choices of emotion terms, evaluative vocatives, diminutives,
gradable evaluative adjectives, evaluative predicative adjectives,
antonymic
adjective pairs, valence verbs, evaluative viewpoint adverbs, adverbs of
manner, and various types of stylistic substitutions.
7.2. Proximity devices [central distinction:
nearlfar]
clearhague]
357
of topics, the speakers self, or partners in discourse. It also includes choices that
focus more narrowly or broadly on referents. Specificity can be regarded here as the
extent to which a conceptualized object of communication is referred to directly by
name, so to speak, as opposed to only implied, suggested, alluded to, generalized,
genericized, or otherwise hedged or indirectly hinted at.
Specificity phenomena include choices of particular versus generic referents (e.g.,
definite vs. indefinite articles: I left my/a book in your office), whole referents versus parts of referents (e.g., The dinner/salad was great), ones self versus hedged
selves (e.g., I/One doubt[s] if thats right), particular vs. habitual actions (viewpoint
adverbs: I [generally] agree with that), particularized others versus generalized
others (definite vs. indefinite pronouns: Can you/someone help me?), particular vs.
general reference (e.g., I like that/things like that), and various rhetorical brevity,
amplification, and substitution techniques.
7.4. Evidential@ devices [central distinction: confidentldoubtjiil]
This category potentially includes all choices that regulate the inferrable reliability, correctness, authority, validity, or truth value of what is expressed (cf. Chafe and
Nichols, 1986). It is one of the most ideationally oriented emotive categories, which
explains why it has been given relatively much attention in linguistics in comparison
with some other categories of emotive phenomena. The uses of evidentiality devices
that are of main interest in an emotive approach are those that suggest attitudes of
confidence or doubtfulness with respect to expressed information (e.g., judgement:
That is/might be right) or intentions (e.g., prediction: I will/could come tomorrow).
Often discussed in the literature under notions of hedging (G. Lakoff, 1972;
Brown and Levinson, 1987), commitment to the proposition (Lyons, 1977;
Schiffrin, 1987), evidentiality (Chafe, 1986; Biber and Finegan, 1989; Haviland,
1989), and identification with the topic (Tannen, 1989), this category includes various epistemic modality phenomena:
uses of evidential modal auxiliaries
(may/might), objective vs. subjective epistemic verbs (know/believe), linking verbs
(is/seems), parenthetical verbs, and modal adverbs (obviously/possibly). It encompasses signs of certainty vs. doubt, things known vs. things thought, and things
that are vs. things that seem. Modality can also be inferred from kinesic activities
(shoulder shrugs, puzzled or doubtful facial expressions), from intonation (fallingrising pitch curves), and from various types of extended discourse strategies.
7.5. Volitionality devices [central distinction: self-assertive vs. unassertive]
This category potentially includes all speech choices, sentence framing techniques, and discourse strategies used to vary levels of inferred self-identification or
self-assertiveness vis-a-vis partners, and all choices used to cast selves or partners in
active versus passive discourse roles. The study of interpersonal volitionality phenomena is one of the central pursuits of modern Western politeness research (cf.
Blum-Kulka, 1987; Brown and Levinson, 1987; Janney and Arndt, 1993). Selfassertiveness is indexed in discourse, for example, by choices of self vs. other pro-
358
noun agents (I/do you want to leave), active vs. passive voice (I/it was decided that
we wont go), declarative vs. interrogative vs. imperative mood (I want/can I
have/give me the book), and assertive negation (Youre not going), and by some
forms of inversion (Right you are/youre right), self-oriented appellative techniques
(Did I agree? No, I said I might agree) and partner-oriented appellative techniques
(Youll think Im crazy, but I said yes).
7.6.
Quantity
This category potentially includes all intensifying and deintensifying speech choices
(cf. Labov, 1984): that is, all choices of quantity, degree, measure, duration, or amount
of a given speech phenomenon. Following Volek (1987), quantity can be of almost any
imaginable kind: intensity of activity, length of performance, quantity of an object,
intensity of an adverb. Quantity phenomena include phonological elongations (Its
huge/hu:ge/hu: :ge), unexpected prosodic stress or loudness (Im not/NOT excited),
uses of interrogative pronouns as intensifiers (What a day!), emphasizing adjectives
(It was a real/complete/total catastrophe), adverbs of degree (Im hardly/very/
absolutely happy about it), and stylistic choices such as repetition (Were happy, really
happy, that you came) and intensifying appellative techniques (NO! Did she really say
that?).
7.7. Analytical approaches: Some basic distinctions
In order to develop a unified, systematic investigation
those listed above, we need some basic distinctions
approaches. Some potentially useful distinctions between
tives, units, and loci of analysis are summarized in the
simplified form.
359
that between the rhetorical notion of emphasis and Seltings (this issue) notion of
emphatic speech style.
7.7.2. Units of analysis
It is useful to keep the problem of perspectives of analysis distinct from the problem of units of analysis. Possible units of emotive analysis could be, for example, the
utterance, the speech-act, the turn, the stretch of discourse, the text, and so forth.
While shorter units of analysis (utterance, speech-act) might seem to be better
approached from a static perspective, and longer ones (turn, discourse, text) might
seem to be better approached from a dynamic perspective, this must not necessarily
be the case. In fact, emotive phenomena at the utterance level can be studied as
belonging to dynamic, interactional processes, and conversely, phenomena at the
discourse level can be studied as static data, givens, or results. The choice of the
unit of analysis is obviously linked to a different theoretical framework. At any rate,
depending on which type of unit is selected as relevant to study, the analysis of emotive phenomena will tend to be centered at either the micro- or macro-level; and it
should be mentioned that there are also various emotive devices between the microand macro-levels: for example, cohesion phenomena such as empathetic anaphora
(cf. Conte, 1993).
7.7.3. Loci of analysis
The study of emotive devices must further focus on .units of analysis in relation to
specific loci of emotive communication. In current research, emotive communication
is interpreted as having mainly the following loci, any of which could serve as a
starting point for pragmatic analysis (see also section 8):
(1) the speaker: e.g., in studies of formal phenomena such as emphatic particles
(just, really) and distancing devices (indirect speech acts, agentless passive,
modal verbs, hedging), and in studies of content-related phenomena such as egofocused discourse, self-disclosures, references to personal experiences and feelings, etc.;
(2) the addressee: e.g., in studies of mitigating strategies, supportive moves (preventive and therapeutic), backchannels, and so forth;
(3) the content: e.g., in studies, at the local utterance level, of marked lexemes,
word-order, attitudinal operators on propositional content (evidentials, modal
adverbs, evaluative expressions), etc., and in studies, at the global discourse
level, of phenomena related to textual construction, such as anaphora, thematic organization, topic repetition, topic shifts, digressions, code-switching,
etc.:
(4) discourse management: e.g., in studies of quantitative phenomena such as the
number of turns held; and in studies of qualitative phenomena such as interruptions, overlaps, hesitation phenomena, silences, etc.
It should be noted that choice of the locus of analysis is not essentially a matter of
exclusion, but a matter of creating a focused object. The use of the first person pronoun can, for example, from a stylistic standpoint, be analyzed with respect to different loci, e.g., the speaker, the addressee, the text.
360
361
362
363
central notion of immediacy as the relationship between the speaker and the
objects he communicates about, the addressee of his communication, or the communication itself (1968: 3). Their main concern is the analysis of verbal forms which
reflect changes in the degree of separation or nonidentity of a speaker with respect
to these three objects (1968: 23).
In Wiener and Mehrabians experiments, variations in verbal degrees of separation between speakers and objects were associated by untrained raters in experimental groups with positive and negative affect. A high consensus scoring of different degrees of verbal immediacy was obtained by these raters. In the experiments,
immediacy was basically studied ex-negative: that is, what raters actually detected
and measured were nonimmediate communications. In Wiener and Mehrabians
approach, the term nonimmediacy refers to any indication of separation, nonidentity, attenuation of directness, or change in intensity of interaction among the communicator, the addressee, the object of communication, or the communication
(1968: 32). The primary nonimmediacy categories are the following: (1) spatiotempot-al categories, e.g., demonstratives, adverbials denoting spatial distance, uses of
tenses where the relation between interactants is temporally displaced either into the
past or into the future; (2) denotative specificity categories, e.g., over-inclusive reference (A: How was the party? B: Everything was wonderful ! ); (3) agentaction-object categories, e.g., the passivity category for instances in which the subject or the object or both are literally stated as being acted upon or driven to act by
external forces (1968: 93); and finally, a category which the authors label (4) qualification and objectification, which includes mainly uses of modal adverbs and
modal operators by which, according to the authors, the communicator, through his
qualification, indicates the possibility that his statements may not be consensually
shared (1968: 94).
Although Wiener and Mehrabian did not use their designated objects (topic,
addressee, communication) to distinguish systematically between their linguistic
examples, it is important in the present connection to stress the high degree of fit
between their categories of nonimmediacy phenomena and the categories of emotive
devices listed in section 7.33 Wiener and Mehrabians experimental findings clearly
suggest that (non)immediate linguistic choices are one important basis, at least, from
which addressees begin making interpretive inferences about communicators affective experience. Emotive choices are learned, but not taught explicitly; nevertheless,
as Wiener and Mehrabian show, they are ... responded to consistently by the members of a group (1968: 28). This strongly supports the hypothesis, expressed at the
beginning of the paper (see section l.l), that speakers are endowed with a highly
each others effects, leading to complex interpretive inferences. This fact deserves more attention in
pragmatics.
33 It may be noted that Wiener and Mehrabians spatio-temporal category is partly similar to the
proximity category discussed in section 7, their denotative specificity category is partly similar to the
specificity category, their agent-action-object category is partly similar to the vofitionality category,
and their qualification and objectification category is partly similar to the evidentiality category.
Wiener and Mehrabians categories, however, do not correspond with these others on all counts.
364
refined, expressive and interpretive emotive capacity that needs to be accounted for
in pragmatics.34 Wiener and Mehrabians work is an important contribution to the
experimental, empirical clarification of how linguistic choices are interpreted systematically from an emotive point of view.
8.3. The deictic triad
From the preceding remarks, and from the earlier discussion, it seems that distances in general, in the broadest sense, are of considerable importance in emotive
communication. Now, before concluding the paper, we would like to consider the
implications of this observation a bit more closely. Linguistically, as we said, distance seems to be regulated by different kinds of deictic proximity devices, or
near/far markers (see section 7.2), which are all related in some way or other to
what might be regarded as the egocentric orientation of the act of utterance. The
proximity category hence appears to be basic, inasmuch as it constitutes a sort of
bridging category between indexicality and emotivity. That is, speakers near/far
attitudes are inferred on the basis of their choices of particular deictic references.
8.3.1. Outer versus inner deixis
Let us dwell a bit on the zero-point of the deictic reference in such cases. In every
act of utterance, according to Btihler (1934), the speaker is the deictic origo, or the
deictic source of the system of spatiotemporal coordinates called into being by the
utterance. Biihler calls this system the Zeigfeld, adding that the Zeigfeld can either be
the real perceptual space shared by the partners, or an imagined perceptual space.
The same chrono- or topodeictic cues can be used to make reference to a real
Zeigfeld (e.g., Its here in the drawer) or to an imagined Zeigfeld (e.g., Here you
will turn to the left). The former phenomenon is Btihlers demonstratio ad oculos;
the latter phenomenon is Biihlers Deixis am Phantasma, where the speaker tacitly
guides the hearers imagination (Phantasiesteuerung) (cf. Conte, 1988), in a sense
inviting the hearer to join him or her, through an act of conceptual transposition
(Versetzung), in an imagined space.
It could be hypothesized that, in addition to Biihlers classic phantasmatic deixis,
which evokes an intersubjectively shared, imagined, external world or outer space,
there is a second kind of phantasmatic transposition: this is the Versetzung from different metaphorical places in what we might call inner space, where the speakers
self or position within his or her own inner affective world becomes the deictic
origo, the zero point of the act of reference, and objects of emotive communication
are represented as being nearer to, or farther from, the speaker in this inner world.
Versetzungen toward or away from the self in inner affective space (ones feelings,
fantasies, attitudes, wishes, etc.) are sometimes implied by emotive uses of demonstratives. For instance, if a speaker uses an utterance like Those people who say X
34 It is worth noticing, incidentally,
that Wiener and Mehrabian speak of variations,
which is a more
objectively
detectable concept than the notion of choices, and one which fits very well into the interpretive category of emotive cotextual contrasts introduced in section 6.
365
to refer to people in the same room, there is potentially a discrepancy between the
outer and the inner Zeigfeld: that is, what is near outwardly (the people physically in
the room with the speaker who say x), seems to be far away inwardly (those people).
If the hearer is to interpret such an utterance correctly, he or she must infer, for example, that: (1) a metaphorical Verserzung from the speakers and hearers shared outer
world to the speakers private inner world has occurred; (2) the zero point of deictic reference is now in the speakers emotional space; and (3) some type of complementary symmetrical Versetzung on the hearers part is necessary if she or he wishes
to keep attuned with the speaker and correctly understand the speakers utterance.
From such examples, we can conclude that the so-called inner world is not only
something that we typically refer to in self-disclosures, when we explicitly talk about
our feelings or attitudes; it can also be the deictic frame from which we refer to objects
in a shared communicative setting.
Throughout this paper, emotive devices have been associated indirectly with attitudes. One of the basic action tendencies connected with positive and negative attitudes, and the starting point of much emotive communication, is the tendency to
approach or withdraw from attitudinal objects: the tendency, in other words, to
establish emotive operating distances (nearer/farther) with respect to things. We are
now in a position to make Frijdas (1982: 112) statement about peoples capacity to
perceive each others approaching or withdrawing gestures (quoted in section 1.1.3)
more precise. From a linguistic standpoint, establishing distance seems to be logically and chronologically prior to all other emotive activities. Before we can evaluate things, commit ourselves to things in different ways, or become more or less
assertive with respect to things, that is, we must first point them out; and in this initial act of pointing to things, we plot our metaphorical positions or distances with
respect to them. In this sense, proximity devices are fundamental features of emotive
communication: they enable us to shift the deictic origo of utterances from points in
outer perceptual space to points in inner subjective space, and they allow us to
express subtle variations of inner distance with respect to our topics, our partners,
and our own acts of communication.
As said above, the linguistic devices (i.e., chrono- and topo-deictics) for outer and
inner deixis - the latter of which is sometimes referred to as empathetic deixis (cf.
Lyons, 1977: 677), emotional deixis (cf. R. Lakoff, 1974), or impure deixis (cf.
Lyons, 1981: 232ff.) - are the same. This suggests that there is a certain isomorphism between the outer Zeigfeld and the inner Zeigfeld: a parallelism, that is, in the
structuration of the intersubjectively shared external world of social processes, and
the subjective internal world of individual affective processes, which can also be
partly shared by partners in linguistic interaction. While the sharing is almost a given
in the former case, it seems to be a product of highly complex, empathic inferential
processes in the latter.35
3s We are not sure if the nature of the shift between the so-called primary meanings of deictic expressions, e.g., locatives and demonstratives, and their derived, so-called symbolic meanings is metaphorical, as is usually said. It could be argued that this shift is actually metonymic, since it is of the part
366
instead of the whole type (pars pro toto); and Mohamed and the mountain, after all, to use Btihlers
famous metaphor, are in these cases (different parts of) the same person.
36 Haverkate (1992) also uses the deictic origo of the utterance as the starting point for an explanation
of mitigating
strategies (cf. Fraser, 1980), although he does not quote Btihler. We share the point that
choices related to the ego-hit-nunc can be strategically
employed for mitigation purposes, but we do not
think that a full account of the nature of these uses has yet been provided in pragmatics.
361
368
ofPrugmatics22
(1994) 325-373
intersubjective
aspects of emotive choices (the intrapersonal/interpersonal
interface). The first perspective
would connect the approach broadly with rhetoric and
stylistics, and could be useful in developing
more adequate descriptive accounts of
emotive choices per se; and the second perspective
would connect the approach
broadly with psychological
and social interactional
research, and could be useful in
developing more adequate interpretive accounts of emotive choices in different communicative contexts. It seems to us that a major goal of future pragmatic research on
emotive communication
will be to show that there are systematic,
empirically
grounded correlations between emotive devices (as described from the former standpoint) and their interpretations
in different situations (as analyzed from the latter
standpoint)
that should not be taken for granted. Reaching this goal, we feel, will
require a unified, coordinated
interdisciplinary
effort. We hope that the proposals
advanced in this paper will help encourage further discussion about how this effort
might best continue.
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