Communication & Inference
Discourse Analysis
Introduction
In order to communicate effectively, we need to take the utterances we hear and see, and “decode” them to make meaning. This relies on us taking in information along with the utterance, such as the surroundings, non-verbal communication and contexts (Cutting, 2002), and using these along with our own stored background knowledge to “fill in the gaps” (Brown and Yule, 1983).
Text 1. “Lovely weather for ducks”
2:15pm Thursday at a small grocery shop in South Wales, UK. Two of the shop’s customers, a man in his 40s (S1) and a woman in her 20s (S2) are passing at the door. S1 is holding the door open for S2 to enter the shop. After the following exchange, S2 continues into the shop and S1 exits. There is heavy rain outside.
1. S1: Lovely weather isn’t it?
2. S2: (Laughs) Aye. Lovely for ducks. Thanks love.
3. S1: No problem. Ta-ra.
4. S2: Ta-ra.
Commentary
Both participants in the above encounter are aware that it is raining heavily outside the shop. They do not share any “interpersonal knowledge” (Cutting, 2002), so this situational context (Cutting, 2002) allows S2 to infer that the “weather” being referred to by S1 is the current weather, even though it is not directly stated.
The participants share “background knowledge”(Cutting, 2002). Where S1 states that the weather is “lovely” (Line 1), he is stating the direct opposite of the meaning he wishes to convey. S1 and S2 are both aware that rain is conventionally considered to be ‘bad’ weather, whereas sunshine would be considered ‘good weather’. This knowledge allows S2 to infer that S1 is making a sarcastic reference to the weather, as opposed to a serious comment about it.
By repeating that the weather is “lovely”, S2 makes clear that she has understood S1’s meaning. By adding the clarifying statement “for ducks”, she is relying upon shared background knowledge (Cutting, 2002). Being a bird that swims, ducks are widely associated with water; consequently, heavy rain is (in their shared culture) often referred to comically as “lovely weather for ducks”.
S2 finished her utterance by thanking S1 (line 2). The situational context (Cutting, 2002) of S1 holding the door open for S2, allows S1 to infer that he is being thanked for holding the door. Holding open a door for another to pass through is a courteous or polite act. The “preferred” response (van Leeuwen, 2006) to a courteous act is a show of gratitude. This shared background knowledge leads S2 to express gratitude, and the co-textual context (Cutting, 2002) of the expression of gratitude makes sense of S1’s utterance of “No Problem”, since it is commonplace to respond to an expression of gratitude with a reassurance that the act did not hinder the person who performed it in any way.
S1 concludes his utterance with “Ta-ra” (Line 3). Their shared background knowledge allows them to know that this is a common slang term used in parting. S2 is able to infer from this that S1 considers their encounter to be at an end, and she repeats it back to him to confirm the end of their conversation before she moves on. This concludes the interaction.
This interaction follows the typical script (Pennington, 2000) for passing someone in a public doorway. It displays the conventional event schema (Pennington, 2000) that there is a social expectation that one participant would hold open a door for the other, that the person walking through the door would thank the person holding it, and that the person holding it would welcome the person walking through.
Text 2. “Lion-taming Beast”
Lion-taming
Beast ‘was
not even a
proper Bok’
This is a headline that appeared on page 109 of the Daily Mail newspaper on Saturday, November 14th, 2009. The page is in the sport section of the newspaper.
Commentary
The article that follows this headline refers to a rugby player known as “the Beast”, and controversy surrounding his citizenship. In particular, the article focuses on the recent defeat of the “British Lions” rugby team by the South African team for which he played. The South African rugby team is widely referred to as the “Boks”.
The headline relies heavily upon the background knowledge (Cutting, 2002) of the reader and uses several metaphors and abbreviations to allow a reader with the necessary background knowledge to infer the intended meaning, and get an idea of what the article is about.
Lion taming is the practice of taming lions, normally for the purposes of using the animals for entertainment in circuses and other such venues. The term “Lion-taming” used as a metaphor (Trask, 1999) in this co-textual context (Cutting, 2002) refers to an occasion where the “British Lions” (a rugby team) were defeated. The usage of the term in this context assumes that the reader's background knowledge will enable him to infer that the article is about rugby.
“Lion-taming” is used here as a metaphorical adjective, rather than a verb, to describe the “Beast”. The “Beast” is the nickname of a well-known South African rugby player, and the co-textual context together with background knowledge context would allow the reader to understand that he played an important role in the defeat of the British Lions.
The phrase “not even a proper Bok” refers to his citizenship. In international rugby, there are several eligibility criteria that must be met in order for a player to play for a national team (IRB, 2009). The word “Bok” is the nickname of the South African rugby team. A reader with adequate background knowledge would therefore be able to infer that headline refers to a controversy over the “Beast’s” eligibility to play for South Africa.
Conclusion
As we can see here, making sense of every day utterance and text relies heavily on shared background knowledge, context and learned scripts and schemas. It requires us to “fill in the gaps” (Brown and Yule, 1983) based on what we already know and what we can see perceive us. We can therefore conclude that in order to make meaning of written or verbal communication, the reader has to read the text literally, and then do “additional ‘work’” (Brown and Yule, 1983: 266) to make sense of it.
References
Brown, G. and G. Yule (1983) Discourse Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press.
Cutting, J. (2002) Pragmatics and Discourse. London: Routledge.
http://www.fira-aer-rugby.com/medias/060924gfirbregulation8_883.pdf IRB Regulation 8 (accessed November 2009).
Pennington, D.C. (2000) Social Cognition. London: Routledge.
Trask, R.L. (1999) Language the Basics (2nd edition). London: Routledge.
van Leeuwen, T. (2006) Introducing Social Semiotics: An introductory textbook. London: Routledge.