Evaluación neuropsicológica

To explore some of the issues that arise when we examine how interpersonal choices work together in written text, we can take the extract below. This is from a chapter by Peter Trudgill on the question of what counts as Standard English. I have numbered the sentences for ease of reference. What I am particularly interested in is the linguistic strategies that the writer uses to put his ideas across in a way that might convince his readers.

(1) Let us then examine lexis. (2) I would like to assert that our sentence The old man was bloody knackered after his long trip

is clearly and unambiguously Standard English. (3) To assert otherwise – that swear words like bloody and very informal words like knackered are not Standard English – would get us into a very diffi cult situation. (4) Does a Standard English speaker suddenly switch out of Standard English as soon as they start swearing? (5) Are Standard English speakers not allowed to use slang without switching into some nonstandard variety? (6) My contention is that Standard English is no diff erent from any other (nonstandard) variety of the language. (7) Speakers of Standard English have a full range of styles open to them, just as speakers of other varieties do, and can swear and use slang just like anybody else. (8) (It will be clear that I do not agree with the contention which is sometimes heard that ‘nobody speaks Standard English’.) (9) Equally, there is no need for speakers of nonstandard varieties to switch into Standard English in order to employ formal styles. (10) It is true that, in most English-speaking societies, there is a tendency – a social convention perhaps – for Standard English to dominate in relatively formal social situations, but there is no necessary connection here, and we are therefore justifi ed in asserting the theoretical independence of the parameter standard-nonstandard from the parameter formal-informal.

Before reading my commentary below, think about the following questions.

1 What is the main aim of this text? What sort of person is likely to read it?

2 Who exactly are ‘we’ and ‘they’ in the text? What could the writer have written instead of ‘we/us/our’, and why do you think he chose to use ‘we’? When does the writer use ‘I’?

3 Who asks the ‘questions’ in (4) and (5)? What are the responses? How do you know?

4 What signals of modality are there in the text? What is their function?

5 What signals of appraisal are there in the text? How much of the appraisal is open to question?

6 What clues are there in the text about what the reader’s opinion on Standard English and swearing could be? (Think about the negatives, for example.) The following is not intended as a complete analysis of the interpersonal meanings of the text. I shall simply be suggesting lines of enquiry that can be followed up in more depth.

Answers

1 The aim is to argue that swear words and informal lexis are part of Standard English, in order to persuade those readers who have a diff erent opinion. The readership is essentially self-selected: this is a fairly specialized text in a specialized volume of articles, and the readers will normally have at least some knowledge of, and interest in, the topic.

2 The writer uses ‘we’ to refer inclusively to himself and the reader for whom he is writing. This reader may or may not match all the real-world readers (for example, you and I do not fully match this reader, since we are reading the text as text analysts, in a way that the writer almost certainly did not have in mind).

Terms such as ‘ideal’, ‘imagined’ or ‘putative’ reader are sometimes used, but I fi nd it useful to talk about the ‘reader-in-the-text’ – a clumsy term, but one that emphasizes that our picture of this imaginary fi gure is based on linguistic evidence in the text. The reader-in-the text here is a linguist, in the sense that, together with the writer, s/he is observing how people use language. For example, it is not ordinary speakers of the language who would be put in ‘a very diffi cult situation’ by the assertion that swear words are not Standard English. This comes out more clearly when we note that the writer refers to the people who use language (‘speakers’) as ‘they’ (i.e. other people, not including ‘us’).

The use of inclusive ‘we’ also aims to involve the reader, who is treated as moving through the steps of the argument together with the writer (e.g. the discussion is of ‘our sentence’). Sometimes the writer could have replaced ‘we/

us/our’ with ‘I/me/my’ – for example, ‘Let me then examine lexis’, ‘my sentence’. This would in some ways be closer to what is actually happening, since it is the writer alone who is producing the text in which he examines the sentence; but the eff ect would be to keep the reader at more of a distance, which

might make the argument less persuasive. It is worth noting that explicit reference to ‘you’ is avoided – this way of referring to the reader is actually extremely rare in academic writing. This is presumably because academic writing of this kind is directed at peers, who are treated as part of the same academic community as the writer. (In contrast, it is more acceptable and frequent to use ‘you’ in textbooks, like this one: at such points the writers are separating themselves from readers, who are represented as less knowledgeable.)

On two of the occasions when the writer uses ‘I/my’ (‘I would like to assert’,

‘My contention’), the implication is that he is proposing an opinion that he thinks he has not yet fully supported with evidence, and therefore restricts the opinion to himself. At these points, the reader-in-the-text has not yet been persuaded that this opinion is correct; so to use ‘we’ would be inappropriately coercive.

3 The two interrogatives realize statements: that is they are expressed in a way, and in a context, that makes it clear that the expected response is ‘no’. These are examples of what are traditionally known as ‘rhetorical questions’. They are not normal questions in the sense that the addressee is expected to provide information that the questioner does not know; but their interrogativeness is what adds semantic value compared with a declarative statement. They function as interactive strategies to involve the reader-in-the-text in constructing the intended statement: the reader has to make the interpretive eff ort to supply the

‘answer’ and to understand that the statement has the opposite polarity (e.g. ‘a Standard English speaker does not suddenly switch out of Standard English as soon as they start swearing’). Involving the reader in constructing the text potentially contributes to the persuasive eff ect.

4 There is only room here to comment on two of the instances of modality. In (8),

‘it will be clear’ represents the following claim as unquestioningly obvious to the reader, who is thus projected as having understood the implications of what the writer has just said. As with the rhetorical questions, the reader is being drawn into the construction and interpretation of the text. In (10), ‘it is true that’

functions as a signal that the proposition is being conceded. That is, the proposition is one that the writer accepts, but we know that a ‘but’ will follow, and the writer will argue that the proposition will not have the consequences that might be expected. In this case, Trudgill accepts that Standard English typically dominates in formal situations, so it might be expected that there is a close connection; but he argues that there is no necessary connection. (See more on this under point 5).

5 The appraisal centres around the validity of the argument that swearing and informal lexis are part of Standard English. There are one or two instances of inscribed appraisal (e.g. ‘a very diffi cult situation’), but mostly the writer relies on invoked appraisal (e.g. ‘no necessary connection’). There is a clear move from signalling that the evaluations are negotiable (e.g. ‘I would like to assert’ allows room for other possible opinions) to the fi nal claim, which is not represented as negotiable (‘we are therefore justifi ed in asserting’ – note that it is now ‘we’ who make this assertion, not just ‘I’).

6 The following are some of the points where certain opinions are attributed to the reader-in-the text. In each case they are opinions with which the writer wishes to disagree: the reader-in-the-text is constructed as the ‘opponent’ in this discussion. In (3), there must be some people, including at least some of his readers, who might ‘assert’ that swear words are not Standard English – otherwise there would be no reason for the writer to mention this opinion. It is, of course, the main point that the writer wishes to argue against. Similarly, the reason why the writer explicitly negates propositions in (6) (‘no diff erent’) and (9) (‘no need’) is that he assumes that some people (including potentially some of his readers) believe the positive. This is the most common ‘particular reason’ for using negatives that I mentioned in 4.4.1 above. For example, if someone looks out of the window and says, ‘Oh it isn’t raining’, that would only be appropriate if the speaker and/or the listener know that it has been raining, or that it usually rains in that place. Finally, I mentioned that in (10) the writer starts the sentence with a concession. In a concession relation, the proposition that is conceded is normally one that somebody else has uttered or that the speaker thinks somebody else might believe. In this case, the writer projects onto the reader-in-the-text the opinion that Standard English typically dominates in formal situations, and therefore there is a close connection; and he then argues against that.

Thus the writer sets out to make his argument convincing by using interpersonal strategies to involve the reader in constructing the text and by showing that he is aware of what the reader might think and taking this into account in framing his own arguments.

• Refer to Exercise 4.3.

Exercise 4.1

Identify the Subject and Finite in the following sentences. Where there is an embedded clause, ignore the Subject and Finite within that clause: simply analyse the main clause.

1 Kate didn’t like this at all.

2 In that case, the universe should contain a number of regions that are smooth and uniform.

3 Tears streamed down his face.

4 In silence they went through the rooms on the top fl oor.

5 So the four we have don’t count.

6 That might have been a diff erent matter.

7 The other few items in the printing history of this work are easily summarized.

8 In the footnotes, the titles of works which we have had to cite fairly frequently have been abbreviated to the author’s surname.

9 It is a matter of common experience that one can describe the position of a point in space by three numbers, or coordinates.

10 It isn’t the money I’m worried about.

Exercise 4.2

Identify Mood and Residue in the following clauses, and label the elements in each:

Subject, Finite, Predicator, Complement, Adjunct. For any Adjunct, decide whether it is circumstantial, textual, Mood or Comment. Do not analyse any non-fi nite clauses separately.

1 He picked up ideas about form from his teachers.

2 He had already been over the house.

3 Where have all the fl owers gone?

4 Of course Tim could not really banish care.

5 To the inmates of the Grange that ceaseless murmur must inevitably evoke the tantalizingly close but unobtainable freedom of wide blue horizons.

6 In her waking hours she would never let us out of her sight.

7 The union involved certainly has to face criticism for its lack of activity on health and safety over many years.

8 Put simply, you will probably fi nd it diffi cult to fi nd a job as a student.

9 Meanwhile, Bruce Grobbelaar’s days at Liverpool could be over this week.

10 Right now, however, you might have to juggle your fi nances around.

Exercise 4.3

Here are three extracts from a consultation in a doctor’s surgery. I have put in slashes at ‘natural breaks’ to make it easier to follow. Analyse the mood, modality and interaction (e.g. look at who asks questions or gives information or instructions, when they do this, and how they do it). This text will be discussed in Chapter 10.

P I can’t bend forward and I can’t like turn sideways/it’s like the bottom of my spine it just feels like I’m sitting on a pin

D so it’s pain in the lower back P lower back just about there D ok how long did you say again

P I mean all last night I couldn’t turn on my side/I couldn’t stand up/I couldn’t go to the toilet

D so it got worse overnight P yeh

D so the fi rst thing is rest/secondly I’ll give you some painkillers/they don’t speed up the healing/it’s just to make life comfortable for you while it’s healing/now it’s

P what is it/is it like a thing I’ve got with my spine or D it’s a torn muscle in your back yeh/it should recover P you wouldn’t think it was so painful would you

D oh no it is/but it’s all right as long as you don’t move/as soon as you move it’ll try and go into spasm to stop you using those muscles you’ve injured

P how long will it take to um

D I think you’re going to be off work at least a week

D there’s your note/the tablets I’m going to give you a common side-eff ect is indigestion so take them with food just to protect yourself/it’s one three times a day/they don’t make you drowsy/you don’t have to fi nish the course/simply when your back is fi ne just stop them

P ok

D it’s not like an antibiotic

(Recorded by Sultan Al-Sharief)

Representing the world