Doing Things with Words

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Doing Things with Words
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Exams and Papers

• Will be available in Williams 509 Monday
• Will be passed back in class Tuesday

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Today

• Terms of address expressing relationships
  through naming
• Speech acts doing things with words

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Language as Social Action

• What kinds of things can we do with words that
  have real social consequences in the world?
• Examples
• labeling/name-calling
• spreading rumors

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Study of British Tabloids

• Kate Clark Suns reporting of sexual assaults.
• Blonde divorcee vs. Divorced mum of two
• Hubby kicks no-sex wife out of bed
• Sex-starved man strangled blonde, 16 Love ban
  by teenage wife.

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Insults

• As Macaulay points out, pg. 104
• Power relationships are very important in
  insults. This includes not only the relationship
  between the speaker and addressee but also the
  nature of the audience.

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Terms of Address

• Terms of address are ways of addressing (speaking
  to) someone
• Name, nickname
• Title, honorific or derogatory term
• Kinship term
• Terms of reference are ways of referring to
  (speaking about) someone

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Naming in English

• Nickname
• First name
• Kin term (Grandma)
• Kin term plus first name (Aunt Thelma)
• First and last name, first last and middle name
• Last name
• Mr, Mrs, Ms, Miss first name
• Mr, Mrs, Ms, Miss last name
• Title plus first name (Judge Judy, Dr. Phil)
• Title plus last name (Dr. Brown)
• Title only (Doctor)

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Reciprocal vs. Non-reciprocal

• Reciprocal you and the person you are talking
  to use the same format
• (First name First name)
• Non-reciprocal you give one kind of name and
  receive another kind of name
• Grandma Sally
• Doctor - Fred

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Characterizing relationships

• Reciprocal usage means
• closeness
• distance, respect
• students use first names doctors may call each
  other Dr. Smith and Dr. Brown
• Non-reciprocal usage means
• inequality in status
• You may say Prof. Brown and she calls you by
  your first name You may call your boss Mr. or
  Doctor and he may call you by your first name

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Registers and names

• Situation has a lot to do with which name you
  choose for someone.
• In some registers, such as a legal register,
  certain kinds of names (nicknames, first name
  only) may not be used
• Switching name types can signal a change in the
  register you are using.

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Terms of address characterize relationships

• Terms of address can actually make or break a
  relationship
• In many languages, there are different pronouns
  that can be used to address or refer to someone
  based on your relationship to them.

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European languages T vs. V

• Most European languages have two forms of the
  second person singular pronoun
• you (informal) and You (formal)
• Using the French forms tu and Vous this is called
  a T/V system

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Choosing pronouns

• Because choosing between formal and informal
  pronouns is SOCIALLY, not GRAMMATICALLY
  motivated, it is a good example of LANGUAGE AS
  SOCIAL ACTION
• By choosing the T or V pronoun, you are choosing
  to represent your relationship to another person
  in a particular way

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T-V, V-V, T-T

• T-V non-reciprocal. One person has higher
  status than the other. V is offered as a sign of
  respect T is offered as a sign of affection
• V-V formal reciprocal. Reflects distance and
  respect, equality
• T-T informal reciprocal. Reflects equality and
  closeness

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Switching

• Lovers may use V-V in a professional context, but
  switch to T-T in private
• Parents and children might use T-T, but switch to
  V-V to signal a break in the relationship
• Schoolteachers might use T toward students until
  they reach high school, when they begin using T
  to them.

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Language change

• English used to have both forms, You and Thee
• Russian adopted the T/V system from French
• In China, the formal pronoun nin has been
  eliminated in favor of the informal pronoun ni

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Japanese I (Social Art pg. 165)

• watakushi ordinary, formal
• watashi ordinary, female speaker
• atashi female speaker, informal
• boku male speaker, informal
• washi aged male speaker, informal
• chin emperor
• ore male speaker, casual, intimate
• atai young girls of lower class

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A more complex case Thai

• http//www.into-asia.com/thai_language/pronouns/i.
  php

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Speech acts
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Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words
will never hurt me

• BUT
• Philosophers of language John Austin and John
  Searle argued that many kinds of language are
  SOCIALLY AND CULTURALLY RECOGNIZED AS REAL
  ACTIONS

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In other words

• As our textbooks note, the idea behind speech
  acts is that language allows us to accomplish
  goals.
• For example, we can state, assert, promise,
  persuade, argue, forbid, etc.
• These are kinds of speech acts that are
  recognized in our culture and have names in our
  language.

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Bourdieu

• Bourdieu points out that AUTHORITY plays a big
  role in who can perform certain kinds of speech
  acts.
• I now pronounce you husband and wife
• Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth,
  and nothing but the truth? I do.
• I lay a curse on this house.

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Language and social action

• Issues like who has authority, or what does
  saying this mean are CULTURAL.
• What kinds of things you can accomplish socially
  with words depends on the culture youre
  operating in, and your position in it.

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Language Culture

• An example of semantic generativity
• Words for drunk
• How many words for drunk can we come up with?

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Themes

• up is good, down is bad
• cooked metaphors
• violent metaphors