Meaning, Form, and Use in Context: Linguistic Applications

359 Pages·1985·18.774 MB·English

by  Deborah Schiffrin (Editor)

Meaning, Form, and Use
in Context:
Linguistic Applications
Deborah Schiffrin
editor
Meaning, Form, and Use
in Context:
Linguistic Applications
Deborah Schiffrin
editor
Georgetown University Press, Washington, D.C. 20057
BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTICE
Since this series has been variously and confusingly cited as: George-
town University Monographic Series on Languages and Linguistics,
Monograph Series on Languages and Linguistics, Reports of the Annual
Round Table Meetings on Linguistics and Language Study, etc., beginning
with the 1973 volume, the title of the series was changed.
The new title of the series includes the year of a Round Table and
omits both the monograph number and the meeting number, thus:
Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1984,
with the regular abbreviation GURT '84. Full bibliographic references
should show the form:
Kempson, Ruth M. 1984. Pragmatics, anaphora, and logical form. In:
Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics
1984. Edited by Deborah Schiffrin. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown
University Press. 1-10.
Copyright (§) 1984 by Georgetown University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Catalog Number: 58-31607
ISBN 0-87840-119-9
ISSN 0196-7207
CONTENTS
Welcoming Remarks
James E. Alatis
Dean, School of Languages and Linguistics vii
Introduction
Deborah Schiffrin
Chair, Georgetown University Round Table on
Languages and Linguistics 1984 ix
Meaning and Use
Ruth M. Kempson
Pragmatics, anaphora, and logical form 1
Laurence R. Horn
Toward a new taxonomy for pragmatic inference:
Q-based and R-based implicature 11
William Labov
Intensity 43
Michael L. Geis
On semantic and pragmatic competence 71
Form and Function
Sandra A. Thompson
'Subordination' in formal and informal discourse 85
Wallace Chafe
Speaking, writing, and prescriptivism 95
Gillian Sankoff
Substrate and universals in the Tok Pisin verb
phrase 104
in
iv / Contents
Talmy Givdn
The pragmatics of referentiality 120
Jerrold M. Sadock
Whither radical pragmatics? 139
Meaning and Form
Richard Hudson
A psychologically and socially plausible theory of
language structure 150
Richard Bauman
The making and breaking of context in West Texas
oral anecdotes 160
Thomas A. Sebeok
Enter textuality: Echoes from the extraterrestrial 175
Michael Silverstein
On the pragmatic 'poetry' of prose: Parallelism,
repetition, and cohesive structure in the time course
of dyadic conversation 181
Contexts: Institutional and Interpersonal
Thomas Kochman
The politics of politeness: Social warrants in
mainstream American public etiquette 200
Don H. Zimmerman
Talk and its occasion: The case of calling the police 210
Alan Davies
Idealization in sociolinguistics: The choice of the
standard dialect 229
Ellen F. Prince
Language and the law: Reference, stress, and context 240
Howard Giles and Mary Anne Fitzpatrick
Personal, group, and couple identities: Towards a
relational context for the study of language
attitudes and linguistic forms 253
John 3. Gumperz
Communicative competence revisited 278
v / Contents
Susan Gal
Phonological style in bilingualism: The interaction
of structure and use 290
The Acquisition of Meaning, Form, and Use
George A. Miller
Some comments on the subjective lexicon 303
Marilyn Shatz
A song without music and other stories: How
cognitive process constraints influence children's
oral and written narratives 313
Elinor Ochs
Clarification and culture 325

WELCOMING REMARKS
James E. Alatis
Dean, School of Languages and Linguistics
Georgetown University
Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you on
behalf of Georgetown University and the School of Languages and Lin-
guistics to the Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and
Linguistics (GURT '84). The chairman of this year's conference is Dr.
Deborah Schiffrin, who has chosen for this, the 35th annual Georgetown
University Round Table, the theme: 'Meaning, form, and use in con-
text: Linguistic applications.' The program she has prepared is impres-
sive, and the superb organization of all the conference details is her
work and that of her able assistant, Susan M. Hoyle.
Like many of you, I was fortunate enough to attend some of the pre-
conference sessions earlier today. One cannot help but remark that,
once again, the preconference sessions present almost as wide and as
interesting a range of topics as the conference itself. This is a tribute
to the energy and enthusiasm of Deborah Schiffrin and our good col-
leagues who dedicated so much time and effort to the success of the
presessions; to all these colleagues, I would like to offer our heartfelt
thanks. I especially want to extend a hearty welcome to the members of
the Inter-Agency Round Table of the U.S. Government. I assure them of
my intention to continue the tradition of acting as their host at all
future Georgetown University Round Tables on Languages and Lin-
guistics, for as long as they wish.
It is a pleasure to see that, as in previous years, some of the best
scholars in linguistics and related disciplines have assembled for this
year's Round Table, thus ensuring a most exciting and productive con-
ference. One of the few prerogatives reserved to the Dean of the School
of Languages and Linguistics is the honor of thanking our speakers for
having agreed to come, many from very long distances, to share the
results of their research with us. You do Georgetown University a great
honor, and render a great service to our colleagues at this Round Table.
Thank you for coming.
I do not wish to delay unduly what will surely be a very profitable and
Vll
viii / Welcoming Remarks
productive session. Before concluding, however, I am pleased to note
that other segments of society have come to appreciate both language
teaching and linguistics. Thanks to the dedicated research and skilled
writing of scholars in these fields, the world has begun to realize what
vital ingredients language teaching and linguistics are in the creation of
the mutual understanding necessary for people to function constructively
and beneficially in a multicultural, interdependent society. Surely then,
in a world that all too frequently edges toward the brink, I am very
pleased to welcome you to a conference that will contribute to the
educational goals which we all cherish and the sense of mission which we
all have.
INTRODUCTION
The theme of this year's Georgetown University Round Table on
Languages and Linguistics is 'Meaning, form, and use in context: Lin-
guistic applications.' Because this is so broad a theme, and one which
can be approached from so many different directions, I would like to say
a few words about how we will be approaching meaning, form and use of
language in context during the next few days at the Round Table.
A continuing task in any academic discipline is carving out a special
domain to be a focus of inquiry, and finding a special set of problems for
which to seek resolution. Sometimes, it seems that these tasks repeat
themselves over and over again, as we attempt to find some area of
scholarship (which necessarily gets smaller and smaller) within which to
achieve expertise.
During this progressive—and inevitable—narrowing of our interests,
our larger, more holistic frameworks may seem to disappear. Our initial
assumptions and definitions, concepts and ideas, theories and meta-
theories, may seem to be overshadowed by specific findings within a
very small area of research. But our larger frameworks never really
totally lose their salience. Rather, they continue to provide implicit
models—because it is within such frameworks that answers are sought
and problems are resolved. Even more basically, it is within such
frameworks that our questions and our problems actually take shape.
In a way, our disciplinary paradigms are like cultures: just as cultures
provide, organize, and sustain our perception of reality, our paradigms
provide, organize, and sustain our academic realities. They do so not
only by providing the questions that we ask and the problems that we try
to resolve, but by helping to form the methods that we bring to bear on
those problems. Our disciplinary paradigms also frame the interpreta-
tions that we provide for our findings. In addition, our paradigms help
define the everyday issues to which we seek to relate and apply our
findings. And just as we accept our cultural constructs without question,
so too, do we accept our academic constructs.
These comments are all relevant to the Georgetown University Round
Table on Languages and Linguistics because meaning, form, and use of
language, in context, have all been domains of inquiry for many very
different academic disciplines, each providing its own sets of paradigms,
IX