APPLIED LINGUISTICS AND LANGUAGE STUDY

General Editor Professor Christopher N. Candlin, Macquarie University

Error Analysis Perspectives on second language acquisition JACK C. RICHARDS (EO.)

Stylistics af'!d the Teaching of Literature · HENRY WIDDOWSON

Language Tests at School A pragmatic approach JOHN W. OLLER JNR

Contrastive Analysis CARL JAMES

Language and Communication JACK C. RICHARDS AND RICHARD W. SCHMIDT lEOS)

Learning to Write: First Language/ Second Language AVIVA FREDMAN, IAN PRINGLE AND JANIC YALDEN IEDSI

Strategies in lnterlanguage Communication CLAUS FAERCH AND GABRIELE KASPER IEDSI

Roading In Foreign Language J. CHARLES ALDERSON AND A. H. URQUHART IEDSI

Discourse and Learning PHILIP RILEY (ED.I

An lntroductiiOn to Discourse Analysis New Edition MALCOLM COULTHARD

Computers in English Language Teachir'lg and Research GEOFFREY LEECH AND CHRISTOPHER N. CANDLIN (EDS)

Bilingualism in Education Aspects of theory, research and practice 11~1 r11~~Mif'll<': 1\Nn

' ' Second Language Grammar: Learning and Teaching WILLIAM RUTHERFORD

The Classroom and the Language Learner Ethnography and. second-language classroom research LEO VAN LIER

Vocabulary and language Teaching RONALD CARTER AND MICHAEL McCARTHY IEDSl

Observation in the Language Classroom DICK ALLWRIGHT

Listening to Spoken English Second Edition GILLIAN BROWN •

Listening in Language Learning MICHAEL ROST

An Introduction to Second Language Acquisition Research DIANE LARSEN-FREEMAN AND MICHAEL H. LONG

Language and Discrimination A study of communicatiotl in multi-ethnic workplaces CELIA ROBERTS, TOM JUPP AND EVELYN DAVIES

Translation and Translating: Theory and Practice ROGER T. BELL

Language Awareness in the Classroom CARL JAMES AND PETER GARRET lEOS)

I.

Translation and Translating: Theory and Practice

ROGER T. BELL

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3. Afftaiue: expressing emotions and feelings: also considered to be a 'secondary' function: the focus or mvestigation in psychology and (traditional) lherarjr criticism.

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Recognizing the dangers of overlap inlierent. in the traditional model, an alternative . approach would be to begin with the process of · communication (as outlined in Chapter 1) and derive functions from the components of that. We tum to such a model next.

5.3.3.2 Jakobsons sixfonction model ... This model defines function (contained in square brackets in Figure 5.3) in terms of the aspect of the communicative event (shown in upper case) on which the language is focused and to set this within a general model of human communicationJJ; . ,

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(phallc:J . AOORESSI!R ------ MESSAGE ---• AOl>RI:SSI!E

[emotive) · [poelicl lconativcJ

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FIGURE 5. 3. Domain of discourse: language functions

The notion of 'focus' is veiy helpful. Adult utterances (in contrast with • those; of pre-school children) are typically ambiguous (i.e. multifunctional) and to think in tenns of the meaning or function of an utterance (or text) is naive. The problem is to discover the primary meaning (the focus) and this resolves itself into aski.ng 'whose meaningr; ~e. meaning/focus .intended by the addresser (the sender) or that decoded from the text by the addressee (the receiver)? Fortunately,' we do not need to address this question yet (we shall in the next chapter) and can continue with an explanation of the model in spite of the ambiguity of reference.

Refermtilllfonction. Here the focus is on the denotative content of the message; the :subject-matter. As its name suggests, this function is oriented towards referring to entities, states, events and relationships

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which constitute the 'real world' of our experiences and arc represented in the propositions which underlie texts. We have met this function already in the discussion of cognitiv011eaning and the idrational macrofunaion of language (in Chapter 4, Section 4.1). Since it is concerned with the face-value, semantic sense of utterances, this f\lnction has, as we noted earlier, tended to be thought of as thr function of language by the linguistically unsophisticated but, given that language is typically multifunctional, it is difficult to find an example of language in usc which is otlb' referential. The best we can do, for this and the remaining five functions, is to give an example which is mai11{y referential:

Here's the 14a.

Said in the bus queue, this has a referential function. It indicates the presence of an entity; a number 14a bus. But even this is potentially functionally complex. The semantic sense (or locutionary force) of whnt hns hccn snld Is clen1· euuugh hut whnl oft he SJll'llkl·l·'s lnfl•ullon (the illocutionary force)? The intention could be to warn the rest of the queue that the bus was coming so that they could be ready to hoard it when it stopped (n conative function). Equnlly, given tlllll the rest of the people in the queue can also sec the bus, the actual giving of the infiJrmation is redundant; the function might he a solidarity-markin~ one (a phatic function) and so on.

Emotive fimction. If the focus of attention is the sender, the meaning which is being highlighted is connotative rather than dcnotati\'e; subjective rather than objective; personal rather than public. Refer­ences to states of mind, feelings, health and the like all have this as their primary function. for example:

I'm tired

Emotive but also useable as a warning, an apology, an excuse ...

Co11ative jimctio11. Where language is being used to influence others, we have a conative function. Very clear examples arc imperatives and vocatives both of which have the explicit intention of altering the actions of another, if only by stopping them and attracting their attention. Examples might be:

Alex! Come here a minute!

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Not that we should naively assume that there is a one-to-one correlation between the linguistic form imperative and the delivery of a speech act which counts as a directive. The conative function is frel(vcntly carried by features from the code which appear to be innocently sib•nalling something quite different. Persuasion is a subtle art and, no douht, at its most successful when it is not rcco~nizcd as such by the recipient; no wonder the advertising industry in capitalist societies llnds it necessary to publish a code of conduct for the rcgubtion of its members.

Pluuic jiolt'lion. We have dealt with functions which derive from a focu:; on the content of the message, on the sender and on the recc:ivcr(s) ;md now, with the ph;ttic function, come to ii.1cus on the channel; on the fact that participants arc in contact. The role of langu.1gc of this type is to signal that one could communicate (greetings and channel-clearing signals such as 'hello' on the telephone) typify this or that one is, fur the moment, not willing to discuss any particular topic; in Britain, at least, the weather and the unsatisf:1ctory nature of public transport serve as suitable phatic topics.

It may appear that the phatic is referential but this is only true in the secondary sense that it is difficult to communicate in language without referring to something. Consider the following simple b'fceting ritual:

A llcllo. How arc you? n Fine I hanks. I low arc you? 1\ Flue. Scl~ )'1111 IUICJ',

B Yes. OK. Sec you.

The 'how arc you?' looks like a genuine enquiry about B's physical and mental state of health and all competent users of English know that the only acccptahlc answer to the 'question' is one which precisely docs not provide that kind of information; a recital of one's aches and pains tends to generate annoyance rather than sympathy.

But wh;lt of the context? What if A were B's doctor and 1hcy are in his surgery? Clearly, the conversation would be inappropriate and the tloe1or would be rightly annoyed that B w;JS wasting his time and th<lt of other patients. If the two meet at :1 party though ...

Puelt<fimrtion. In this case, the orientation is towards the message and the selection of clements from the code which draw attention to thcm~clvcs and, hence, to the text. The poetic usc of language has, tr<lditionally, made usc of unexpected collocations and marked

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thematic structures and patterning - at both th.e syntac~~ and. the phonological level - which is stri~ng through ~~ repeunveness or though. the breaking of expectanons of re~ennon .. Rhyme- a?d rhythm-schemes are a clear example of thts; constder the s~ct conventions of the limerick or the Petrarchan and Shakespeanan

sonnet forms. · · h·t-h There are, it should be recognized, 'poetic' uses ofl~nguage ":' tc

arc an everyday occurrence; genre such as story-~elhng ~nd .Joke­telling, children's rhymes, football shouts. The poenc funcnon IS not the preserve of the poet alone.

Meta/i11guistic fimction. This final function derives from an ~ri~ntati~n to the code; language being used to ta1k about lan~a~e. Dtcb?nanes and grammars have, par excellence, a ~e.ta~nguts~c f~n~no~ as: indeed, has the whole of discourse in the dtsctphne oflmgu1sbcs ttself; for example, this book~ . ·

There are, as we might.expect, metalinguistic utter~ces a.nd t~xts which arc produced by people who are not professtonal hngutsts. Communicators not infrequently check their speech ~s they ?o a~ong~ particularly when verbalizing the search for an appropnate lextcalltcm.

Perhaps we should look into opportunities for fu .. .fu ... funding. No that's not it. I've lost tl~e word. What do you call it when n company gives a student money to do research? Sponsorship. That's it. Yes. Sponsorship.

5.3.4 Summary

In this section we have been trying to make explicit linkage~ betWeen, on the one hand, selections· of option$ available from within the systems of the code (the TRANS~TMTY, ~O~D and THEME systems outlined in Chapter 4), whtch are reahzed m TEXT and, on the other situational variables (differences between (a) usm of texts time and both physical and social space and (b) uses to which !exts are put; differences in addressee relationship, me~i~m and funcnon). To achieve this required the setting up of a descnpnve level betweep that of the code itself and the ~i~ation of its use; the level of DISCOURSE.

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