Secuencia para la puesta en marcha de "STO" y "SS1"

Universal though it is, the phenomenon of small talk has received, at best, sporadic treatment in the linguistics literature. For both practical and theoretical reasons, it seems to lie outside the mainstream of academic interest: it is too spontaneous, too embedded in social context to be experimentally investigated, and too lacking in explicitly communicated propositional content to be of enduring interest to theorists. However, technological developments are now close to resolving some of the

practical difficulties involved in experimental work (see Chapter 4), while, as I argued earlier, phatic communion already has qualities that make it a valuable proving-ground for dialogic investigation. But the most important of these qualities

lies at a deeper level than the standardisation of form and content mentioned earlier, and – crucially – involves motivational and affective factors as well as cognitive ones. It lies in the nature of the phatic communicator’s goal, which involves establishing a positive connection between oneself and another and which, I would argue, demonstrates the elicitatory power of the Addressee at its most recognisable. This goal of making interpersonal connections has been seen as the defining

characteristic of phatic communion from its earliest appearance in the literature, in the famous description by anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski. Eighty-eight years after it was first published, his analysis of the function and nature of the ‘language used in free, aimless, social intercourse’ (Malinowski 1923: 476) remains highly relevant:

In discussing the function of Speech in mere sociabilities, we come to one of the bedrock aspects of man’s nature in society. There is in all human beings the well-known tendency to congregate, to be together, to enjoy each other’s company… Now speech is the intimate correlate of this tendency, for, to a natural man, another man’s silence is not a reassuring factor, but, on the

contrary, something alarming and dangerous…The modern English expression, “Nice day to-day” or the Melanesian phrase, “Whence comest thou?” are needed to get over the strange and unpleasant tension which men feel [my emphasis] when facing each other in silence.

After the first formula, there comes a flow of language, purposeless expressions of preference or aversion, accounts of irrelevant happenings, comments on what is perfectly obvious. Such gossip, as found in Primitive Societies, differs only a little from our own. Always the same emphasis of affirmation and consent, mixed perhaps with an incidental disagreement which creates the bonds of antipathy… There can be no doubt that we have here a new type of linguistic use – phatic communion I am tempted to call it… – a type of speech in which ties of union are created by a mere exchange of words.’

(ibid: 477-8)

Perhaps surprisingly, the topic receives only scant explicit mention in Brown and Levinson’s seminal work on politeness (1987 [1978]: cf 109, 117-8). However, a set

of politeness techniques that they identify for claiming ‘common ground4’ with interlocutors covers some utterance goals that overlap with Malinowski’s

observations. These goals include seeking agreement with Addressees, avoiding disagreement with them, presupposing/raising/asserting common ground with them, showing exaggerated interest, approval, or sympathy, using in-group identity

markers, and making jokes (ibid: 102). All of these are readily found in everyday phatic usage, along with the phatic mode’s heavy reliance on context. Some examples are given below:

Example 5

Context: ‘Several people have been waiting at a bus stop in North London for about twenty minutes. One of them walks some way up the road to see if a bus is coming. He then returns to the others and says (facing another person who is also waiting):

a) A: No sign of a bus. I suppose they’ll all come together. b) B: Oh yes. They travel in convoys.’

(Žegarac & Clark, 1999b:567)

Example 6

Context: Midwinter; AJP buys a paper

a) Newsvendor (giving back change): There you are, darling. b) AJP: Thanks. Cold, isn’t it?

c) Newsvendor: Cold ? This is a heatwave – I’m dreading winter. (Pollard, 2005a: 3)

Example 7

Context: In the street, AJP suddenly hears someone close behind her, sighing:

a) Passer-by (loudly): Oohhh dear!

b) AJP(startled, looks round and catches his eye)

4

Note that the meaning they give here to the term is more general than Clark’s: it merely indicates areas of common experience or interest that will allow a Speaker to convey fellow-feeling to an Addressee, and thus respect for the Addressee’s needs, values, and self-image.

c) Passer-by: It’s been a long day so far.

d) AJP I do know what you mean.

(Both smile; the passer-by moves on)

(ibid: 15)

Example 8

Context: In a train, AJP climbs on the seat to get her bag from the luggage rack. Another passenger stands up to help her:

a) Passenger: You should have worn your heels.

b) AJP (who seldom wears high heels but doesn’t want to kill the joke):

Oh yes.

(ibid: 19)

Example 9

Context: AJP waits on the pavement to cross a busy road. She is carrying a loudly mewing cat in a basket. Another pedestrian glances at the cat, then away. He glances again, then looks up to meet AJP’s gaze:

a) Pedestrian: They don’t like it, do they?

b)AJP: No – he’s very patient, but he’s not very keen. (collected by Pollard)

Here are Malinowski’s comments ‘on what is perfectly obvious’ (Examples 6 and 9). Here, too, as described by Brown & Levinson, is avoidance of disagreement

(Example 8), joking (Examples 5 and 6), and exaggerated sympathy (Example 7). And they give plentiful illustrations of whole-message utterances and linguistic routines that can skip conscious selection (cf Levelt) or the full production process (cf Pickering & Garrod) and come to the utterer’s lips ready-made; even the ‘convoy’ reference in Example 5 is now so old that it has lost its freshness as a joke and

become a verbal ritual – a routine. This is not speech production as hard work; it is, instead, speech on something close to autopilot, speech where utterances geared to

the Addressee’s requirements are produced quickly, continuously, and with minimum apparent recourse to decision-making. How does this happen?

The answer, I would argue, overlaps with that to the question I raise at the end of the previous section: does the influence of an Addressee over a Speaker extend to eliciting fluent speech, as well as inhibiting it? The next section explores this connection and also considers an aspect of dialogic interaction that Pickering & Garrod tend to bypass, apart from some isolated references (eg ‘People use beliefs about their interlocutors to start the process of alignment’, Garrod & Pickering, 2007: 445). This is the nature of the procedures employed when a dialogic episode is opened. What happens in your Conceptualizer – your decision-maker for speech intentions – to cause you and your interlocutor to first start talking? And is it the potential Addressee who, here too, at a low, non-verbal level, controls the exchange?