Language in Use 129-130
This unit is concerned with the economy that is possible for speakers of a
language, because utterances occur in particular settings and most speakers
are regularly participants in man), settings. It explores the degree to
which successful communication can take place with the minimal use of language.
What is said is not so much a message as a verbal gesture meaningful to the
listener, because the nature of the particular setting concerned is familiar.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] In this session, the class are presented with a number of the briefest
utterances, all out of context, and are asked to say how much they can deduce
about those contexts merely from the word or phrase given. A list should be
kept of how many contexts can be thought tip for any one of the utterances used.
The following list may prove useful as a guide to what is required:
half, please black or white? M'lud
no go eight penn'orth no, rare
how will you have it? four spades drop 400
you're welcome reach in-off again
[2] In this session, the class should examine the list made in [1] and
work out what enables them to assign context at all. In particular, they should
focus on those items like 'half, please' for which very many contexts are possible,
and those like 'in-off again' which are very limited. Tile object of the session
is to develop an awareness of how readily we rely upon the we have organised
our own experience to give meaning to such minimally informative utterances
as these:
(a) what kinds of words and phrases lend themselves to wide interpretation:
are they part of the common language?
(b) is it always easy to assign a context if the utterance is in some sense
technical?
(c) what differences are there in the way we 'understand the meaning of' one
of these utterances? For example,
everyone would see 'Hymn No 20' as uniquely assignable
to 'religious service', but there are many different
settings in which 'religious service' can happen, so
that while everyone understands what context it belongs to,
it will mean something very different to a regular church-goer
and to a pupil who only hears it in the context of school
assembly.
(d) does speaking the phrase aloud increase or decrease the possible range of
context available for it?
[3] In this session, the class should work in groups, each group taking two or three of the utterances so far discussed and providing for them a verbal context which will make clear in the fewest possible words what is going on. Each group speaks its solutions aloud to the class, and the discussion should focus upon their success or otherwise in narrowing down the range of possible contexts.
[4] For this session, the class should work in the same groups, and this time each group should choose two utterances of their own, and prepare a dialogue for each which leaves the context ambiguous for as Iong as possible. Again, these dialogues should be spoken to the class and discussion should focus upon how much everyday use of language can be ambivalent to a bystander.
The distinction between ambiguous and ambivalent is developed in D12.
Related work is referred to in B6.