GROUP MEMBERS:

TASK 1. PRAGMATICS (POLITENESS, INDIRECTNESS, FACE)

INSTRUCTIONS

Read carefully Chapter 6 (Theories of Politeness) by Thomas and the paper “Pragmatics” by Hickey and summarize the main points discussed by both authors below. NOTE: do not pay attention to questions on discourse analysis in Hickey’s paper, just the notions dealing directly with Pragmatics discussed in class.

Summary

In the last years pragmatic has been focused on politeness, even considering it a subdiscipline. Pragmatic studies way that people use the terms and words in order to express other statements. It is important to mention the register because depending on the situation is used one or other way to speak and express yourself, making relevant the connotation of the conversation. When we talk we use phrases with a double sense we try to define with other words what we really want to say. That is the importance and what pragmatic really studies. For instance, when you say ‘ it is cold here! ‘ you are expecting someone closes the window but you do not tell the exact sentence you want to be acted. For example another explanation of pragmatic could be. When you are at home and your mother is in the toilet and the phone rings and she says ‘ I am on the bathroom’ what she really wants to say is if you could answer the phone instead of her. All these statements depend on the speech act that we want to show or express.

Choose a film or TV series you particularly like and explore how TWO of the following notions is illustrated by the dialogues among the characters.

OPTION 1. Address forms and politeness (0.5 points)

Speech acts have been studied both by philosophers and linguists. One aspect of the use of speech acts is how speakers choose a particular form to address the listener or a larger audience. This will be the topic in the task below, which deals with address forms in TV series or films. The aim of this task is to explore how the choice of address form is affected by the social relationship between the speakers.

Download the subtitles or transcript of the film or episode of the TV series you have chosen and complete the dialogue by watching it. Pay attention to the different address forms used in it such as common nouns (e.g. guys, folk, chaps, dear), a personal name or a pronoun (e.g. everybody), nicknames etc. Have a look at Dickey’s paper (Moodle).

Questions to answer:

How many different categories of address forms can you find?

Try to identify the functions of the address forms you find in terms of their social function

(i.e. establishing intimacy or group feeling, ‘greeting’, catching attention or picking out a

particular participant).

ADDRESS FORMS AND POLITENESS

Address forms depends on certain factors concerning the speakers such as their social status, their ages, their level of kinship, their social or work position...

We have analyzed the film 'When a man loves a woman' and the TV series "How to get away with murder" and "Gossip girl" and we have extracted many examples from the different ways of addressing we have studied from the Dickey's paper.

- The social meaning of a word when used as an address form does not necessarily have a close connection to that word's literal meaning.

For example in the Gossip Girl's chapter, Blair's father calls her 'my bear Blair'. (She is not a bear.)

- The way of addressing somebody is socially determined. Social status involves a determinate way of addressing. For instance, the position in the academic hierarchy, teacher and student. Depending on the social position they used FN, TLN, or FNLN. If they have the same academic status they used to use FN.

For example: in the TV series 'how to get away with murder', students addresses to Professor Annalise Keating as 'Ms Keating' or 'Professor Keating' while the other teachers, their mates call her Anni. Since Mr. or Ms indicates distance or respect.

- There is difference between referential and address meaning.

For example: In the film 'When a man loves a woman' the grandmother addresses her granddaughter 'sweet angel'. She is not an angel, it is an endearment term to refer.

- When speakers refer to people unknown to their addressees use words in reference which are not used in address.

For example: To refer to Lionel Bryant in the judge in the series "How to get away with murder", she says: Mr. Kaufman's jealous business partner, Lionel Bryant.

- Family members of a younger or the same generation that the speaker were almost always addressed by FN, nickname or a term of endearment.

Michael addresses to their children like 'my beautiful girls' or 'my babies' .

Michael calls his wife as Alice, her first name and vice versa (she generally calls him Michael).

- Family members of ascending generations were normally addressed with kinship terms. Genetic parents with kinship terms and step-parents with FN .

In the film 'when a man loves a woman' Casey, the little girl and biological daughter of Michael addresses to him by daddy while Jess who is his stepdaughter calls him Michael.

- It is worth mentioning that teachers speak to colleagues about his students with nicknames as well as close friends do it.

Professor Keating addresses a student Mr Gibbins while She refers to him such as Wes, his FN, when she talks to her husband or her mates.

- Nicknames were more noticeable in academic than in family interaction. Nicknames can replace FNs within the community. Nicknames can be diminutives.

For example in the film when a man loves a woman the older little girl Jess is addressed like Jessy by her parents.

To conclude, it can be said that generally teachers who like to be addressed to their FN, call their students the same way, while teachers who prefer to keep a different social status address to their students as Mr. or Ms, followed by their last name. Between people of the same class, they address each other by FN or nicknames, but when it is an important person they refer to them by TLN or FNLN. Moreover, if the speakers have an intimate acquaintance they tend to use terms of endearment such as daddy, mummy, sweet girl, honey... On the contrary, to address to somebody unknown, older or from a higher status we can use Sir, Madam, Mr. or Ms... We use all these different ways of address in our daily lives showing respect, tenderness or whatever.

OPTION 2. Evasiveness and indirectness (0.5 points)

According to Grice (1989: 30), a speaker ‘may say, indicate or allow it to become plain that he is unwilling to co-operate in the way’ a maxim or maxims require. Below we’ve provided some typical opt outs of the Relation, Quantity and Manner Maxims:

‘I know I’m changing the topic, but...’

‘As you all know...’; ‘I cannot say any more...’

‘This may be a bit obscure...’

Notice that, in each case, the speaker makes explicit his unwillingness to adhere to the maxim in question.

Watch the film or episode of the series you have chosen carefully and find evidence of how speakers flout/violate the cooperative maxims. Explain why this happens in the film/series you are exploring.

- In “How to Get Away with Murder”, when everybody in the class starts talking, Mrs. Keating, the teacher, says “It’s getting a bit noisy here”, in order to make the students stop talking, instead of directly telling them to shut up.

- In “Gossip Girl”, the character Rufus tells his wife during a conversation “I’m a loyal guy. Once I commit to something, I stick with it”. Although the conversation does not refer to it, it’s previously hinted that Rufus was cheated on by his wife, and this is a subtle attack about that.

- In that same series, the character Nate refuses to testify in favour of his father during a court against him by simply telling him; “You better hope they don’t call your son to the stand”. This does not only mean that he will not testify in his favour, but also that if he’s called, he may testify against him.

- In the movie “When a man loves a woman”, a woman is very worried because her husband works too much and has no time for her. She tells him to “have the grandest time in the world, and come home rested”, which is, basically, telling him to take some time away from his work, in order to be more time together.

- From the same movie, the man is told by his wife “I'm waiting for my spanking” and the man tells her “I know we have pressures, and we need to have fun. But wringing you out at the end of an evening is less fun than it used to be. But wringing you out at the end of an evening is less fun than it used to be. And thinking back, it's been going on for quite a while, Alice”. The previous day, Alice got drunk, and her husband tries to explain her this way that she lost her control.

TASK 2. SOCIOLINGUISTICS (0.5 points)

INSTRUCTIONS

Choose one reading between the chapters by Johnson, Romaine and Tannen (all of them discussing different aspects of the differences between male and female speech interaction). Read carefully the chapter and summarize the main points discussed in it.

Summary

We are going to summarize the topics about the text “Discourse Patterns of Males and Females” by Fern L. Johnson. It is a very interesting text which talks about the differences between male and female (from their youth to their adultness) speaking.

First of all, we want to specify that boys/men do not talk in the same way as girls/women. Boys are more direct, reluctant to show their feelings and use more slang in conversations. They are more confident and forceful. However, girls and women are less assertive, more talkative and they tend to show their feelings. Their use of grammar is more polite (the use of slang is lower).

Little girls (4 years old) tend to talk about wishes but the same-aged boys talk about sports (and they are more confident than girls). When they (both: girls and boys) have to play the role of mothers and fathers, they use a low ton for males and a high pitch for females.

Second grade girls are comfortable in speaking about personal life (quite the opposite in boys). They have the same way to confront issues but girls are more reluctant to dialogue and negotiation. Adults determine children since they were born (putting pink clothes on girls and blue ones on boys) and by telling them how to behave themselves (“Sit up properly” and “Toughen up” for girls and boys respectively).

When they become adult, the same behavior is shown. Males tend to talk about games, sports… and females about feelings and personal concerns. The comparison between their speech is made with the phrases “chatty/gossip woman” and “taciturn men/men of few words”. These show that women are more talkative (but with unimportant substance of the talk) than men.

We can see in some studies that men talk about a lot of topics with few comments but women talk about few topics with a lot of opinions (although men give their own opinions in a conversation with women and women only ask, agree or disagree with a topic given in a conversation with men).

The last point we want to remark is that most of the interruptions are initiated by men, when they are speaking with a woman (about 96% in a first study and 75% in a second one).

Make a list of the notions/aspects you are going to explore in your film or TV episode (at least three aspects of the ones discussed in the chapter you have chosen):

Aspects to explore

(1) _______________________________________________________________________(2) _______________________________________________________________________(3) _______________________________________________________________________(4) Add as many as you need

Prepare an oral presentation to show what you found in ONE TASK AMONG THE ONES YOU HAVE DONE (0.5 points)