Pragmatics

Unit 2: Speech Act Theory

This unit introduces Speech Act Theory as a way of examining both the surface meaning, namely what is said, and also the underlying meaning, what is meant. Initially, decide whether the interaction has a transactional or interactional macro-function – or both. Next look at the locutionary act, the illocutionary force and the perlocutionary effect. Look back at A2.3 Speech Acts for a reminder if you need to.

Text A

Text A is a short section of George Bernard Shaw’s play, Pygmalion. The play is about social class, and describes an experiment by a phonetics professor, Henry Higgins, on a flower seller, Liza Doolittle. The flower seller speaks Cockney – a regional dialect found in London – and Professor Higgins persuades her to allow him to train her speech. As he explains to his mother in Act III, ‘I’ve a sort of bet on that I’ll pass her off as a duchess in six months’. In this extract, Professor Henry Higgins arrives at his mother’s house when she is expecting guests for her ‘at-home day’ – the day when she is at home to welcome visitors. Stage directions are in italics.

Act III

It is between four and five in the afternoon. The door is opened violently; and Higgins enters with his hat on.

MRS. HIGGINS [dismayed]	Henry [scolding him]! What are you doing here to-day? It is my at-home day: you promised not to come.
[As he bends to kiss her, she takes his hat off, and presents it to him].
HIGGINS.	Oh bother!
[He throws the hat down on the table].
MRS. HIGGINS.	Go home at once.
HIGGINS [kissing her]	I know, mother. I came on purpose.
MRS. HIGGINS.	But you mustn’t. I’m serious, Henry. You offend all my friends: they stop coming whenever they meet you.
HIGGINS.	Nonsense! I know I have no small talk; but people don’t mind. [He sits on the settee].
MRS. HIGGINS.	Oh! don’t they? Small talk indeed! What about your large talk? Really, dear, you mustn’t stay.

Professor Higgins goes on to explain his experiment on the flower seller, Liza, to his mother. He has invited Liza to Mrs Higgins’s home this afternoon, and ‘she has strict orders as to her behavior. She’s to keep to two subjects: the weather and everybody’s health’. Just as he finishes telling his mother about Liza, Mrs Higgins’s guests arrive.

Mrs. and Miss Eynsford Hill are … mother and daughter… The mother is well bred, quiet, and has the habitual anxiety of straitened means. The daughter has acquired a gay air of being very much at home in society: the bravado of genteel poverty.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [to Mrs. Higgins]	How do you do? [They shake hands].
MISS EYNSFORD HILL.	How d’you do? [She shakes].
MRS. HIGGINS [introducing]	My son Henry.
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL.	Your celebrated son! I have so longed to meet you, Professor Higgins.
HIGGINS [glumly, making no movement in her direction]	Delighted.
[He backs against the piano and bows brusquely].
MISS EYNSFORD HILL [going to him with confident familiarity]	How do you do?
HIGGINS [staring at her]	I’ve seen you before somewhere. I haven’t the ghost of a notion where; but I’ve heard your voice. [Drearily] It doesn’t matter. You’d better sit down.
MRS. HIGGINS.	I’m sorry to say that my celebrated son has no manners. You mustn’t mind him.
MISS EYNSFORD HILL [gaily]	I don’t. [She sits in the Elizabethan chair].
MISS EYNSFORD HILL [a little bewildered]	Not at all.
[She sits on the ottoman between her daughter and Mrs. Higgins, who has turned her chair away from the writing-table].
HIGGINS.	Oh, have I been rude? I didn’t mean to be.

(George Bernard Shaw (1913), Pygmalion

Available at: www.gutenberg.org/files/3825/3825-h/3825-h.htm

Posting date: 28 May 2009 [EBook #3825])

Text B

Text B is an article in Stylist, a free magazine typically handed out at train stations around the UK. The article is on the topic of small talk – the title is below.

Go to www.stylist.co.uk/life/the-art-of-smalltalk to read the article.

Activities

Text A

Using Searle’s (1969) classification of speech acts into macro-classes (see A2.3 Speech Acts), identify:

• a declaration
• a representation
• a commissive
• a directive
• an expressive

Look for direct speech acts and indirect speech acts.

For example:

When Mrs Higgins says ‘What are you doing here to-day? It is my at-home day: you promised not to come’, would you categorise this as direct or indirect?

How about when she later says ‘Really, dear, you mustn’t stay’?

Now, find your own examples.

Text B

Now go back to Text B, and the advice there on small talk. Re-read Text A and consider the social dimensions of the interaction between Prof. Higgins and his mother’s guests.

Further research

• Choose a section of dialogue from a play or film, and decide whether the interaction is transactional or interactional, or both. Then look for examples of macro-classes within the text. Identify some indirect speech acts. Are there social or cross-cultural dimensions worth considering? Turn your findings into a presentation, and give it to your colleagues.

How useful is this type of analysis? Is it easy to do?

• Consider whether the macro-class groupings are worth using in your teaching practice. You will read more about teaching pragmatics in your reading of later units (for example A8), but for now, is there anything here you would consider teaching? How could you use these groupings in your practice? Make a lesson plan, and discuss it with a colleague. If possible, teach the lesson and reflect with your colleague on the lesson.

Unit 3: Cooperative Principle

Grice’s four maxims (1975, see A3.3) make up the Cooperative Principle: quantity, quality, relation and manner. The maxims, when adhered to, can make spoken interaction flow more smoothly. The maxims can also be flouted and/or violated – which may or may not have an effect on the flow of interaction. Sperber and Wilson (1995, see A3.8) say that these maxims, when working successfully, all rely on relevance, and propose a Relevance Theory that encompasses all the maxims. For Sperber and Wilson, it is important that enough context is given or known for the hearer to have to make minimal effort to understand the interaction.

Text A

Text A is an extract from the play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. In the play, Liza, a poor flower seller from London, is taken on by Professor Higgins as a social experiment. He wants to pass her off as a woman from a much higher social class than her own. This excerpt follows on from the extract in Unit 2, with Freddy (Mrs Eynsford Hill’s son) joining the conversation – you may remember that Professor Higgins had invited Liza to his mother’s home, and that he has explained to his mother that Liza ‘has strict orders as to her behavior. She’s to keep to two subjects: the weather and everybody’s health’ (Act III). Stage directions are in italics.

Act III

MRS. HIGGINS [at last, conversationally]	Will it rain, do you think?
LIZA	The shallow depression in the west of these islands is likely to move slowly in an easterly direction. There are no indications of any great change in the barometrical situation.
FREDDY	Ha! Ha! How awfully funny!
LIZA	What is wrong with that, young man? I bet I got it right.
FREDDY	Killing!
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL	I’m sure I hope it won’t turn cold. There’s so much influenza about. It runs right through our whole family regularly every spring.
LIZA [darkly]	My aunt died of influenza: so they said.
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [clicks her tongue sympathetically]!!!
LIZA [in the same tragic tone]	But it’s my belief they done the old woman in.
MRS. HIGGINS [puzzled]	Done her in?
LIZA	Y-e-e-e-es, Lord love you! Why should she die of influenza? She come through diphtheria right enough the year before. I saw her with my own eyes. Fairly blue with it, she was. They all thought she was dead; but my father he kept ladling gin down her throat til she came to so sudden that she bit the bowl off the spoon.
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [startled]	Dear me!
LIZA [piling up the indictment]	What call would a woman with that strength in her have to die of influenza? What become of her new straw hat that should have come to me? Somebody pinched it; and what I say is, them as pinched it done her in.
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL	What does ‘doing her in’ mean?
HIGGINS [hastily]	Oh, that’s the new small talk. To do a person in means to kill them.
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [to Eliza, horrified]	You surely don’t believe that your aunt was killed?
LIZA	Do I not! Them she lived with would have killed her for a hat-pin, let alone a hat.

(George Bernard Shaw (1913), Pygmalion

Available at: www.gutenberg.org/files/3825/3825-h/3825-h.htm

Posting date: 28 May 2009 [EBook #3825])

Text B

Text B is an excerpt from a conversation in an American workplace, posted on the website www.overheardintheoffice.com/. Anyone can submit snatches of conversations they have overheard in the workplace to this website. Text B is a conversation between a Branch Manager (BM) and two Cube Rats (CR 1 and CR 2) – a cube rat is a person who works in the sort of office where individual desks are separated from each other by dividing screens.

1	BM:	I’m sending you an e-mail.
2	CR1:	Thanks…
3	CR2:	You’re one of those people, huh?
4	BM:	Ha, no, but he’ll like this.
5	CR2:	Is it a funny one about a cat?
6	BM:	No!
7	CR2:	Drat.

(Posted 25 August 2014

www.overheardintheoffice.com/archives/005055.html/ (7 October 2014))

Activities

Text A

One objection to Grice’s model is that it does not apply across every culture equally or equivalently, and this extract perhaps illustrates this, as although the speakers are all British, they are from different social classes. Bear that in mind as you work through the following tasks.

Higgins can be seen observing the maxim of quantity when he says “Oh, that’s the new small talk. To do a person in means to kill them”, while perhaps Liza is not doing this throughout. Pick out an example of where she might be doing this. Is she flouting or violating the maxim of quantity? However, it is worth considering her motives for giving too much information. Is she aiming to derail the conversation?

Find an example of Liza observing the maxim of quality.

Liza also observes the maxim of relation – find an example of this.

Liza also attempts to observe the maxim of manner, but she is unaware that Mrs Eynsford Hill and Mrs Higgins do not understand the meaning of ‘doing her in’. What impact does this have on the interaction?

Text B

Relevance Theory holds that the speakers give just enough information for each other to understand without making too much effort.

Looking at Text B, where can you see examples of this? You might find that you are unable to make sense of the utterance, while the speakers clearly understand each other. What is it that makes the utterance comprehensible to the other speaker? Sperber and Wilson talk about explicature (see A3.8 Relevance Theory) – the information that all the speakers have before they begin the interaction: what explicature happens in this extract? What explicature may or must have happened before this extract occurred?

Further research

1. Go to the website www.overheardintheoffice.com/, and choose 5 or 10 conversations, ideally at random. Think about Relevance Theory.

   First, are you able to establish from each excerpt whether there was any breakdown in communication? Was the interaction successful?

   In a successful interaction, how have the speakers used their shared knowledge and context to ensure that what they say is relevant?

   In an unsuccessful interaction, what has gone wrong? Is it a lack of relevance?

   Second, are you yourself able to make sense of the interaction? If you are unable to make sense of the conversations, ask what further explicature you would need in order to understand what is happening.

   Consider writing up what you have learnt about applying Relevance Theory to 5 or 10 short conversations overheard in the American workplace.

2. This is a longer term project. Start collecting overheard conversations yourself. Carry a notebook around with you, and note down short exchanges you hear around you. If you do not have easy access to native English speakers, collect data from the conversations that go on around you. Consider the data you collect in terms of the Cooperative Principle and Relevance Theory. Could you compare and contrast the two approaches in terms of your data? If you have collected non-English language data, compare what you have found with what you know about English language data. Does your data fit what you know of the Cooperative Principle and Relevance Theory? Collect the differences and similarities that you notice.

   How easy was it to analyse your data using these methods? Was it straightforward to manipulate your data? Could you improve the methods; and if so, how?

Unit 4: Politeness Theories

We often need and want to show a friendly attitude; we want to save face for ourselves and the people we are interacting with. For interactions to run smoothly, politeness and face protecting are important. Examine how politeness is achieved – or not – in a range of texts.

Text A

Text A is an excerpt from Seinfeld, an American comedy series centring on a comedian, Jerry Seinfeld. In this extract, Jerry is flying home to New York, and has been talking to Gavin, the man in the seat next to him, when Gavin is taken seriously ill. Gavin is also travelling to New York and his dog is in the cargo hold of the plane.

Cut to external shot of the plane in flight, then back into the cabin where flight attendants are tending to Gavin, who is lying on the floor.

Attendant #1:	Sir, we’re gonna make an emergency landing in Chicago and get you to a hospital.
Gavin:	My dog. What about my dog?
Attendant #1:	Uh, you have a dog?
Attendant #2:	Do you know anyone on the plane, Mr. Palone?
Jerry stares out the window.
Gavin:	Jerry?
Jerry:	Huh? How you feeling?
Gavin:	Would you take care of Farfel?
Jerry:	Farfel?
Attendant #2:	It’s his dog. We’re landing in Chicago to get him to a hospital, could you take his dog to New York?
Jerry:	The dog? The dog??
Gavin:	I’m sure it’s only for a day or two.
Jerry:	But, you know, what if, you know?
Gavin:	Give me your address and phone number, I’ll call you.
Jerry:	The dog?

New scene. Jerry’s apartment, he’s got all of his furniture up and there’s a loud incessant barking coming from the bedroom. Jerry and Farfel are playing ‘tug of war’ with one of Jerry’s sneakers.

(Episode no. 21, Season 3, Broadcast date: 9 October 1991. www.seinfeldscripts.com/TheDog.htm (3 October 2014))

Text B

Text B comes from the website ‘CreateDebate’, whose ‘goal is to build this site into the best social debate network on the Internet … CreateDebate is a new social networking community built around ideas, discussion and democracy’ (www.createdebate.com/about). In this text, the author is responding to a web essay, disagreeing with it and suggesting improvements.

To read the text, go to www.blog.createdebate.com/2008/04/07/writing-strong-arguments/

I just finished reading an interesting essay entitled How to Disagree. (www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html) Written by Paul Graham, the essay introduces and describes a seven-level Hierarchy of Disagreement … I completely agree with Graham’s theory but I have to disagree with him in one critical area: his use of illustrations (he uses none).

(www.blog.createdebate.com/2008/04/07/writing-strong-arguments/ (10 October 2014))

Activities

Text A

In this text, Gavin needs help – he needs someone to take care of his dog while he receives emergency medical treatment. From the script directions it is clear that he is successful – Jerry is taking care of Gavin’s dog in his apartment. How has Gavin achieved this?

From your reading of the extract, does Jerry want to take care of Gavin’s dog?

Gavin needs help: does he ask for help off record, or bald on record? Brown and Levinson (1987, see A4.3 Politeness and Face) suggest that a bald on record request may be more likely to be accepted as a firm direct request is very difficult for the hearer to say no to. – What do you think Gavin’s intention is here? The attendant also asks Jerry for help – again, think about the attendant’s intentions here.

We might expect some positive or negative politeness strategies in this kind of interaction. Can you find evidence of these? Does Gavin minimise the imposition on Jerry?

Consider FTAs – face-threatening acts. We might expect that the speaker requesting the help might want to avoid an FTA. Is there evidence that Gavin and the attendant avoid FTAs? If not, why not? You might find more evidence that Jerry tries to avoid an FTA – collect this evidence.

Think back to the Cooperative Principle maxims – quantity, quality, relation and manner. Find examples of speakers observing the maxims in this extract. The Cooperative Principle is another way of looking at the Politeness Principle – do you find one more useful than the other? Or do they both add different aspects to your understanding?

Text B

In this text, a writer disagrees with and criticises another text. The writer also gives advice to people using the CreateDebate site wishing to respond to debates they read. Despite the purpose of the text being to criticise, the writer can be seen to use some politeness strategies.

We might expect to find some impoliteness, as the writer is critical of another’s work. Can you find evidence of impoliteness here?

Think about Leech’s Politeness maxims (1983, see Unit A4.4 Politeness Maxims):

‘I completely agree with Graham’s theory but I have to disagree with him in one critical area’ (Text B, www.blog.createdebate.com/2008/04/07/writing-strong-arguments/ (10 October 2014))

In these lines the writer is criticising Graham’s original article. Which maxim(s) can you identify in action? Read the text again for another criticism, and again, identify the maxims in action.

The writer also gives advice to readers who want to respond to arguments they read online. Giving advice risks FTAs, particularly in a non face-to-face context where non-verbal cues to the response are not available. In this text, the writer avoids an FTA – how?

Further research

1. Make notes every time someone asks you to do them a favour – whether directly or indirectly. If possible, note the exact words that were used. Note your response – both your emotional response and your actual spoken response.

   If you are not based in an English-speaking country, you could collect this data in groups with native English speakers – for example in a local ‘English Corner’. Alternatively, collect the data in your own language.

   Compare your notes to the politeness strategies you have read about and understood in this unit. Which can you see in action? Prepare a brief presentation of the data you have collected and your analysis of it.

2. Are these politeness strategies culturally bound? Using your data and analysis from the previous task, consider how these requests would have been made in another culture you are familiar with. If possible, discuss politeness strategies with someone from another culture. Add a section to your presentation using what you learn.
3. Finally, put your data together with the literature. Write a brief survey of the literature, and include your data as examples. Additionally, use your data to exemplify where the literature does not reflect what you have found. Use the Further Reading suggestions in Unit A4, B4, C4 and D4 to deepen your understanding. Expand your presentation, and consider delivering it to your colleagues.

Unit 5: Corpora and Communities

In Units A5,B5 and C5, you gained a good understanding of the use of corpora – a vital skill for the language teacher and learner. Here, we are not going to look at corpora, but rather at the language of communities of practice and domains of discourse.

Text A

Text A is a page from the website ‘Gransnet’, which describes itself as ‘the social networking site for grandparents. Launched in May 2011, the site was described by the Telegraph as “a new dawn in grey power.” Gransnet’s forums cover everything from politics to holidays, gardening to difficult daughters-in-law’ (www.gransnet.com/info/about (11 October 2014)).

Text A is the page, ‘Getting Started’, which is designed for people new to the website who want to join the conversations on the forum.

Go to www.gransnet.com/info/getting-started and read the page.

Text B

Text B is a page from a forum on the same website, ‘Gransnet’. Text B is a thread on the forum – a member is looking for advice about ‘moles and dogy knees’. ‘Dogy knees’ is a typing error – the writer means ‘dodgy knees’ – problems with her knees. The exchange is typical of the forum, one member asks for advice, and others share experiences, advice and also encouragement.

Go to www.gransnet.com/forums/health/a1194477-moles-and-dogy-knees and read the thread.

Text C

Text C is a transcript from Embarrassing Bodies, a reality TV show, where members of the British public are filmed consulting doctors about medical conditions they have been too embarrassed to consult their own doctors about. Here, the patient Pippita (P) consults Doctor Dawn (D) about a mole that is worrying her.

P:	I’ve got a mole at the bottom of my back that I’m a bit concerned about.
D:	And in what way has it changed?
P:	It’s gone a bit crusty, my partner said it’s gone a bit of a different colour ...
D:	Well, look, we ought to have a look.

(www.channel4embarrassingillnesses.com/video/consultations/consultation-mole-check-up/ (11 October 2014))

Activities

Texts A and B

The first text serves to describe the desired and preferred speech acts on the forum. Do remember that it is controversial to describe an internet community as a true community of practice (see A5.4); however, it is interesting to examine these written rules. In ‘true’ communities of practice, the rules are rarely written down, rather they are understood by the members, and it is this understanding that marks members as belonging to the community in question. Not all the rules are explicit: look at the instruction ‘Type your wise words into the box’ – what is implied by the choice ‘wise words’?

Examine Text A. Identify the rules, both implicit and explicit, then group them into the three categories of conventions that typically identify a community of practice, namely linguistic, pragmatic and behavioural conventions.

Read Text B: go to the ‘Gransnet’ forum online, and read the full conversation. Look for evidence of members following the conventions. Can you identify any more conventions that are not in the written list of rules?

Text C

‘Domains of discourse’ is the term used to describe typical interactions in particular settings. When we enter a domain, when we join an interaction, we use the clues around us – the setting, the function of the interaction, the attitude of the participants and so on – and use this information to join the discourse in an appropriate way. Although the extract in Text C comes from a filmed doctor–patient encounter, it could be said to be typical of doctor–patient interactions in the UK.

Could this interaction be confused with a different kind of interaction? Could it be a conversation between friends? Could it come from a different domain of discourse – for example those discussed in Unit A5, service encounters, media and the courtroom? Explain your answer.

Think back to your reading in Unit A5 about research into domains of discourse. In the examples given there, different approaches (Conversation Analysis, Speech Act Theory, Politeness Theory and Cooperative Principle approach) were used to examine different discourses. Which approach might work best with this text and this type of interaction?

Further research

1. You made a list of conventions expected in the ‘Gransnet’ forum. Go to the forums with your list. Are the conventions you noted respected by all members at all times? When do members ignore convention? Can you identify any in-group code? How do members use the code to reinforce their membership?
2. Examine an online forum you already know, or find one that suits you. Are there any written rules? What do you think the unwritten rules are? Identify a set of both written and unwritten rules, then collect data from exchanges on the forum to support this set of rules. Next, collect data more randomly – look at ten threads that were contributed to on the date of your last birthday. Using the last ten comments on each thread as your data, look for conventions and in-group code. How do your findings compare with your first findings?
3. You chose an approach that might be a useful way to examine doctor–patient interactions. Text C came from a TV show, and on their website (www.channel4embarrassingillnesses.com/video/consultations/) you can find transcripts and video-clips of many more doctor–patient interactions. If you are in any way squeamish at all, do avoid watching the videos, just click beneath the screen to read the Video Transcript. Collect transcripts and use the approach you chose to analyse them. Present your findings to your colleagues, and consider writing up your findings for publication.
4. The data you have collected could now be used as a corpus. Use your corpus to search for the most frequent words. Then look at the words that occur on either side of the most frequent words. Can you find any patterns? Go to one of the corpora suggested in Unit C5, Text B. Does the corpora you choose show similar patterns? Think about this process – how easy was it? Did any of the patterns you identify surprise you? How do the patterns you identified compare with the patterns in the online corpus you used? And how do the patterns compare with what you expected to find?

Unit 6: Critical Discourse Analysis

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is a way of looking at texts with the aim of uncovering issues surrounding power.

Texts A, B and C

These three texts are related: they report the news that a woman who has previously featured on a TV reality show is now to appear on another reality TV show. The woman, Deirdre Kelly, known as White Dee, lived on a street in Birmingham where the reality TV show Benefits Street was filmed. The show highlighted residents of the street who didn’t work, but instead relied on benefits – payments from the government – to support them. Six months later, Kelly is to be a contestant on the reality TV show Celebrity Big Brother, where a group of people live in a house together and are filmed 24 hours a day for approximately a month. The three texts report the news that Kelly is going to appear on this show, and also reveal the writers’ attitudes to Kelly.

Text A

Text A is an extract from a newspaper article publicising a new series of the reality show Celebrity Big Brother. This section introduces one of the contestants on the show, Deirdre Kelly, known as White Dee.

To read the text, go to www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/who-white-dee-celebrity-big-4070904

Text B

Text B is an extract from a magazine article, profiling the same reality show contestant, Deirdre Kelly, as in Text A.

To read the text, go to www.closeronline.co.uk/2014/02/white-dee-set-to-appear-on-the-next-series-of-celebrity-big-brother-putting-an-end-to-her-claiming-benefits#.VDpq9mddV_A

Text C

Text C is an extract from another newspaper article, this time from a regional newspaper, again, covering the news that Deirdre White is set to appear on another reality TV show. This article features an interview with another woman, known as Black Dee, a former neighbour of Kelly.

To read the text, go to www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/benefits-streets-black-dee-blasts-7634810

Texts D and E

The texts above all report an entertainment news story, and the function of the writer was not primarily to persuade the reader; instead it was to inform. The next two texts are written to both persuade and inform.

Text D

Text D comes from the Comment section of the website www.theecologist.org, and this extract is the introduction to a summary of a report the writer recently co-authored.

The growth of food banks reflects a simple truth: the government does not care about hungry families ... To tackle hunger, work must pay a living wage, social security must do its job, and communities must rebuild local food networks.

To read the rest of the introduction to the report, go to www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/2384762/food_banks_a_radical_plan.html

Text E

Text E is the ‘About’ page from a political news website – www.politics.co.uk. The ‘About’ page gives visitors information about the website and its purpose.

‘Westminster’ is the location of the British Houses of Parliament – where Members of Parliament (MPs) and the British government work. ‘The lobby’ is the space inside the House of Commons where MPs can mingle, and which non-MPs have access to.

To read the rest of the page, go to www.politics.co.uk/information/about-politics-co-uk

Activities

Texts A, B and C

All three texts concern the same story – a woman who became well known on one reality TV show is now appearing on another reality TV show. CDA can help readers understand the attitude of writers to their subject. With an insight into the writers’ values and attitude, the reader can better understand the text itself.

Text D

Writers often use rhetorical devices to persuade and create emotion. This short text, introducing readers to a report the author has written, is emotive. The topic itself – food banks – is an emotional topic, and the writer wants to inspire readers to go and read his report ‘Hunger in the East of England’.

How formal is this text? In Unit A6.4 Ideology, Power and Language you saw an example of informal language being used to seem more friendly. In Text D you can find examples of informality, but you might think that the writer’s purpose is slightly different here.

In the phrases ‘a simple truth’ and ‘a dramatic rise’, consider alternatives to the adjectives. What effect would a different word choice have?

Read Text D again and find an example of the rule of three.

The writer makes use of sound bites from David Cameron, British prime minister, and Margaret Thatcher, former British prime minister. Look at the choice of sound bites, and where he places them, what effect do these choices have?

Look at the sentence ‘In our “civilised” country’. It does not contain all the elements we would expect in a sentence – why not? What effect does this have on the reader? Why has the writer placed the word ‘civilised’ in inverted commas?

Text E

The purpose of Text E, the ‘About’ page, is to inform visitors about the website. As such, it serves as an advertisement for the website, and uses persuasive language throughout. Read Text E again, and identify elements in the text that advertise the website.

The lexical choice is overwhelmingly positive. Pick out some of these words and phrases that strike you as particularly positive.

The writers use a range of rhetorical devices: find an example of the use of rule of three.

Try rewriting the text without these positive elements, instead as a purely factual text. For example, a rewrite of the first line might read ‘Politics.co.uk is a UK political news website.’ Compare the two versions.

Further Research

1. Choose a current news story, and find the story reported by a range of news sources. Compare the writing, looking for the underlying values and intentions of the writers. Compare the effects created by the different choices taken by the writers.
2. CDA can help identify language pointing to national, racial and gender identity. Choose the aspect you are most interested in, and collect texts to survey. Examine the language used, and write a short report on what you find. As you saw in Unit A6.6 Limitations of CDA, one limitation of CDA is that it relies on the analyst’s view. In order to gain some insight into this, ask a colleague to examine the same texts, and write her/his own report. Compare your reports – how different is what you have both written?
3. Find other ‘About’ pages online. Examine the language used.

Unit 7: Intercultural Pragmatics

Different communities have different conventions, and a lack of knowledge and/or understanding of the conventions can lead to a breakdown in communication. Intercultural communication difficulties are well-known now, and a search of the internet will take you to any number of websites offering advice and insight into culture.

Text A

Text A is a transcript from a video blog, the ‘Business Culture Doctor’. The ‘About’ page explains that:

In this video, the ‘Doctor’ gives an insight into a cross-cultural misunderstanding concerning a British manager working in Saudi Arabia and requests for favours.

Text B

Text B comes from a website which describes itself as ‘a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts’.

Question

Answers

(www.english.stackexchange.com/questions/172162/what-do-you-call-someone-who-is-always-asking-for-favours (13 October 2014))

Text C

Intercultural differences featured in an advertising campaign run by HSBC before 2011. The slogan ‘HSBC, the world’s local bank’ ran alongside a series of advertisements highlighting cultural misunderstandings. Text C is the slogan from this campaign. A typical advertisement contrasted different cultural rules: for example American business people having a meeting standing up to save time, compared with Japanese business people contemplating their decisions quietly. Other advertisements in the campaign simply illustrated different cultural rules: for example in Thailand it is rude to show anyone the soles of your feet, and in Greece showing the open palm of your hand with outstretched fingers is a rude gesture.

You can watch advertisements from the campaign online www.youtu.be/ALWwK7Vz4gY (12 October 2014).

Activities

Texts A and B

Further Research

1. Add to your understanding of asking for favours in different cultures. Cross-cultural pragmatics might be useful to shed more light on different conventions of asking for favours in business culture in Saudi Arabia and Britain. Design a contrastive study to explore how British English speakers ask for favours from each other in English, compared to how Arabic-speaking Saudi Arabians ask for favours from each other in Arabic. Consider politeness theories, and look particularly at ‘face’. Imagine you have all the resources necessary to carry out this study, and plan how you would go about it.
2. Collect intercultural differences, both verbal and non-verbal. Perhaps choose one area, for example, having a meal. Consider as many aspects as you can: setting, participants, conventions and so on. What knowledge do you have about having a meal in other cultures, perhaps from personal experience or from books or films? What happens in your own culture? Ask your colleagues to do the same. For fun, design your own HSBC advertisement.

Unit 8: Teaching Pragmatics

After working through the book and the web exercises, you should now have a good understanding of pragmatics, and this will have included considering where pragmatics fits into your own teaching practice. This final section brings together the strands of pragmatics you have already met with language teaching. You have read about the debate surrounding the teaching of pragmatic competence: is it something learners will absorb through exposure, is it something that needs to be explicitly taught, or is it something that should be avoided in order to allow the learners to maintain their own identity, and to ensure that one culture is not promoted over another?

Text A

Text A is a presentation posted online, by a student learning English in America.

(communication misunderstanding between different counties by Chuyi Sun on 7 December 2012)

Go to www.prezi.com/mvihjhn7k4-5/communication-misunderstanding-between-different-counties/ to read the whole presentation.

Text B

Text B is a list of speech acts taken from Unit A2.3:

Declarations:	including words and expressions that have legal weight
Representatives:	including describing, claiming, hypothesising, insisting, predicting
Commissives:	including promising, offering, threatening, refusing, vowing and volunteering
Directives:	including commanding, requesting, inviting, forbidding and suggesting
Expressives:	including apologising, praising, congratulating, deploring and regretting

Text C

Text C is the online diary, or blog, of a British woman who moved to France and writes about her experiences for the BBC website www.bbc.co.uk/languages/yoursay/. The diary extracts show that intercultural competence relies on a combination of language competence (being able to invite someone for a meal), and cultural competence (knowing what is expected from a meal at a friend’s house).

The trouble is that it is not just rustling up something hot, oh no, we have sat down to 5 course meals … with the last course being served around midnight … So not only do I have to learn the language I also have to learn the local ways and etiquette.

To read the rest of the diary extracts, go to www.bbc.co.uk/languages/yoursay/janies_france_diary.shtml

Activities

Text A

Text A could be used as a teaching resource. Intermediate level – or above – learners could be asked to work on language errors: spelling, grammar, punctuation. Learners could then be asked to polish the presentation, and to then give the presentation themselves. The subject of the presentation could then be addressed, and intercultural communication discussed.

Write a teaching plan using this text as a resource. How would you exploit it to highlight intercultural communication? If possible, teach your lesson and ask a colleague to observe you. Reflect on the lesson together, and if possible with some of the learners.

Next, think about adapting the resource for different levels of students. What level students did you use this resource with? Could your lesson plan be adapted for use with other level students? Consider issues surrounding lower level students in particular: how can you address teaching pragmatics at lower levels?

Text B

This list could be used in your teaching. Could you use the list as it appears here and give it to your learners explicitly, or would you use it to structure a series of lessons?

Write a teaching plan using this list as a resource. If possible, teach your lesson or series of lessons and ask a colleague to observe you. Reflect on the teaching and learning with your colleague, and if possible with some of the learners.

Text C

These diary entries describe some of the difficulties associated with crossing cultures. The texts – and others you can find on the BBC website www.bbc.co.uk/languages/yoursay/ – can be used in your teaching.

Write a teaching plan using this resource. If possible, teach your lesson or series of lessons and ask a colleague to observe you. Reflect on the teaching and learning with your colleague, and if possible with some of the learners.

Further Research

1. Continue to expand and deepen your understanding of pragmatics. Examine the texts – written and spoken – you come across from a pragmatic perspective. Seek out articles on pragmatics both online and in print. Discuss your thoughts with colleagues.
2. Continue to reflect on intercultural pragmatics in your practice. Think back to speech acts – particularly indirect speech acts – where what is meant is not what is said. Could you translate these speech acts into another language or cultural context? Are your students able to do this? Discuss your thoughts with colleagues.
3. Continue to use the texts you encounter for analysis. Work through the approaches and principles you met in this book again. Again, reflect on your teaching.
4. Continue to be aware and ask yourself questions about language and language choice.