Drama

What will we learn in this topic?
This is the first of the three topics in this course devoted to the stylistic analysis of dramatic texts. So we will begin by thinking about the nature of drama and dramatic texts and look in general terms at what is needed in terms of stylistic analysis to analyse dramatic texts well. Then we will move on to look at the specific analytical area we are going to explore in this first topic, namely the turn-taking structure of conversations, how turn-taking reveals things about the relations among the participants (in particular power relations) and how this kind of conversational analysis helps us to understand character relations in plays.
Analysing Drama - Preliminary Matters

Task A - Text and performance Task B - The prototypical discourse architecture of drama Task C - What aspects of the language do we need to analyse when we analyse drama?

Task A - Text and performance
The first thing to notice is that we are going to analyse dramatic texts in this part of the course. But most plays are written to be performed and so most drama critics have argued that it is performances which should be analysed, not texts.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of analysing (a) dramatic texts and (b) dramatic performances? After you have discussed this issue with your partner, compare your views with ours. Our answer

Task A - Our answer
Performances are clearly much richer linguistically than play texts. The actors'
voices add emphasis, special voice qualities and intonation, and we can see their facial expressions, gestures and actions, as well as costumes, props and so on. Not surprisingly then, dramatic performances are usually easier to understand and more enjoyable than dramatic texts. But the analysis of the 'performance factors' like gestures and actions is still very much in its infancy, and so at present we just don't have the tools to do the analytical work that would be needed in a stylistics approach. In any case, this course is about language and literature. And analysing the language of dramatic texts is more developed and quite complex enough to keep us profitably occupied in this course. In any case, even though play texts are written to be performed, it is clearly also possible for people to read dramatic texts, understand them and enjoy them. Indeed, most of us can imagine how a text would be performed as we read it, and it is clear that (a) actors and directors read and understand dramatic texts in order to decide how to perform them, and (b) most drama classes in schools and universities discuss texts, not performances. So analysing dramatic texts is by no means without its merits, and at the very least a complete account of a play would have to include an account of the language used by the characters in it. Another general philosophical issue to consider is what the object of dramatic criticism should be: dramatic text, dramatic production or dramatic performance? It is clear that the text is the object of criticism for poems, novels and short stories. If we listen to a reading (performance) of a poem, story or novel we still assume that the poem, say, resides in the text, not the performance. Where is the play? In the text? In a particular production? Or in a particular performance of a particular production? These are clearly complex issues that we do not have the time to explore in detail here. But you might like to debate the issue with other students and your tutors in the Language and Style Chat Caf. If you want to follow up the issues, you can see opposing views expressed in the following two discussions: Wells, Stanley (1970) Literature and Drama, London: Routledge, chapters 1 and 4. Short, Mick (1998) 'From dramatic text to dramatic performance'. In J. Culpeper, M. Short and P. Verdonk (eds) Exploring the Language of
Drama, London: Routledge, pp.6-18.

Task B - The prototypical discourse architecture of drama
Below we reproduce the prototypical discourse architecture of the novel which we outlined on the 'Discourse structure of 1st- and 3rd-person novels' page in Topic 8.
Think of a play with a 'standard' discourse structure that you know well (e.g. William Shakespeare's Macbeth, Hamlet or King Lea, Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot, Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party, Caryl Churchill's Top Girls, Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman or David Mamet's American Buffalo) and use it to work out what you think is the prototypical discourse structure of drama. Then compare what you think with what we think. Our answer
Task B - Our answer

Most plays do not have narrators, and so drama prototypically has two levels of discourse:
On stage we watch the characters talk to one another - we just witness the lower of the two discourse levels. But when we read a play we see the stage directions, which are effectively messages to the actors and director at the upper discourse level, about how to perform particular parts of the play. And even when we watch a performance of a play we know that an author has written what the characters say (and some acting instructions too) and so we assume that we are meant to infer, from what they say and do, things that the author is telling us about them. So, for example, we infer characterisation and relations between characters. This is actually what we did when we discussed a poem by Roger McGough's, 'Comeclose and Sleepnow' in Task C of the 'Discourse structure and point of view page' in Topic 8 (indeed, we asked you to draw a discourse structure diagram for it!). You may like to have a look at that page when you have read the rest of this page, to remind yourself of what we noticed then. Of course, although most plays don't have narrators, a few do, and so, like novels, need three levels of discourse structure to account for them, as the discussion of Robert Bolt's A Man for all Seasons immediately after the 'Comeclose and Sleepnow' task makes clear. An interesting example of a play with a non-prototypical discourse structure is Alan Bennett's The Lady in the Van. Alan Bennett is both a character and a narrator in his own play, and onstage two different actors play him, dressed identically - one is Alan Bennett the character and the other is Alan Bennett the narrator, who comments on Alan Bennett the character, what he does and what happens to him. Then, during the course of the play, the actors playing narrator and character swap roles too. Bennett is clearly being very creative with the discourse structure of this play, and uses this creativity to create very interesting and complex point of view effects (we have covered point of view in the prose section of the course, and it is worth remembering that what we learn about in relation to one literary genre can sometimes also be usefully applied when analysing other genres, fictional and non-fictional.
Task C - What aspects of the language do we need to analyse when we analyse drama?
Given that plays are mainly conversations between characters on the stage, the most obvious kind of analysis to use will be that developed by linguists to analyse conversational interaction, and that
is what we will concentrate on in the drama section of this course. Let's begin with looking in detail at a small example, in order to see the sorts of things we need to explore. The extract below is taken from Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part II. Sir John Falstaff, is a lecherous, middle-aged and boisterous drunkard who has spent much of the two plays Henry IV, Part I and Henry IV, Part II teaching the young heir to the throne, Prince Hal, how to have a good time in the inns and bawdy houses of England. Now, at the end of the play, Hal's father, King Henry IV, has died, and Prince Hal has just been crowned Henry V. As Hal is now king, Falstaff and his cronies Pistol, Shallow and Bardolph think that life will carry on much as before, but with extra funds to support the merriment. They approach him as he leaves Westminster Abbey, after the coronation: Falstaff Pistol Falstaff King God save thy Grace, King Hal; my royal Hal! The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame! God save thee my sweet boy! My Lord Chief Justice, speak to that man in vain.*
Chief Justice Have you your wits? Know you what 'tis you speak? Falstaff King My King! My Jove! I speak to thee, my heart! I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers. How ill white hairs become a fool and jester. (Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part II: Act 5, scene 5, 42-9) *in vain = contemptuously It is clear that the new King Henry V treats his old drinking friend with considerable harshness, signalling a very different relationship between them now that he has the power and responsibility of being the head of state. Look carefully at the last three lines of this extract and try to describe in as much detail, and with as much precision as you can, how the two different attitudes of Falstaff and the new King are being indicated linguistically. What could we explain by using foregrounding theory, as dealt with in Topic 3? What else do we need to account for if we are to come up with a precise characterisation of the meanings and effects in these three lines? Our answer
Conversational structure and power
In the rest of this topic we are going to explore how power relations between characters are indicated in the turn-taking and other features of conversational structure.
Task A - What is power? Task B - How is power reflected in conversational turn-taking? Task C - Exceptions? Task D - Assessing the extent and character of conversational power
Task A - What is power?

In the rest of this topic we are going to explore how power relations between characters are indicated in the turn-taking and other features of conversational structure. But before we start doing that it will be helpful to be clear about the various different kinds of power we can talk about. For example, a king might be more powerful than one of his subjects in terms of his position in society, but less powerful physically and mentally. Discuss with your partner the various different forms of power someone can have and how you might perceive them on the stage, and then compare your thoughts with ours. Our answer
Task A - Our answer

There are many different kinds of power, but here are a few which are often significant in dramatic texts. Physical power (physical strength); Institutional power (e.g. managers vs. workers in a company, teachers vs. pupils in a school); Social power (e.g. parents vs. children in a family, and richer (vs. poorer) or more 'in' (vs. 'out') people in communities); Personal power (e.g. someone who speaks their mind, no matter who they are talking to, or who is very clever or insightful, and so can lead others by virtue of the fact that they consistently come up with the best ideas or suggestions).
Task C - Exceptions?
Task B helps us to uncover our general intuitions about the relationship between conversational behaviour and power. But there are also exceptions. Can you think of any exceptions to the 'general rule'? If so, can you explain why the general rule does not apply? After you have talked it through with your partner, compare your thoughts with ours.
Task C - Our answer

Sometimes exceptions occur because of clashes between two different kinds of power. A good example would be the very confident student (personal power) who talks at great length in class and perhaps even interrupts the tutor (who has the institutional power). Sometimes other factors get in the way. Hence a teacher may allocate a turn to a particular student ('What do you think, Julie and Mark?'), but the students may be too shy (or too terrified, or not have an thing to say) to take up the turn allocated. There are also what we might call 'institutionalised exceptions'. In an interview, for example, the interviewee is the weakest participant but will probably have the longest turns. This is because it is in the interests of the more powerful participants, the interviewers, to have the interviewee talk at length in order to find out more about him or her. Sometimes the personality or particular wishes of the most powerful participant might make a difference. For example, if a friend goes for an interview and comes back saying 'it was more like an informal chat than an interview really' this is presumably because the interviewer had a fairly 'laid back' personality or had decided that creating a less formal interview situation, with less strongly demarcated conversational power lines, would be useful for some reason.
Task D - Assessing the extent and character of conversational power

How could we use the questions outlined in Task B to assess the extent of someone's power in a conversation, and the exact character of that conversational power?
Task D - Our answer

If we ask each of the questions systematically in turn we can build up a conversational power picture of the people involved. We could predict that a very powerful person would fit the prototype of the powerful person our intuition-based answers to the Task B questions suggested. If the power relations are not so clearly demarcated, we might find, for example, that A interrupts more than B but B changes the topic more than A.
Looking at the particular set of turn-taking patterns may also help you to see other things about characters in plays. For example, a person who has most of the powerful turn-taking characteristics but does not interrupt others would probably be seen as polite, whereas someone who interrupts others a lot may be thought of as domineering and overbearing. On the next page we will analyse an extract from a play carefully in order to explore these kinds of issues further.
George Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara

Task A - Familiarising yourself with the passage Task B - Initial impressions
Task A - Familiarising yourself with the passage

Below you will find an extract from the very beginning of George Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara and a video-clip of the extract being acted out by some undergraduate students studying Theatre Studies at Lancaster University. We suggest that you familiarise yourself with the extract by reading it through and then, after you have done that, watching the video-clip. That way, you will be able to form your own impressions of the extract before seeing how the students interpret it. In Task B we will be asking you to spell out what you see as the relationship between the two characters in terms of power and anything else you think relevant. So it will be useful to bear this in mind when you are reading the extract and watching it performed.
ACT I
[It is after dinner in January 1906, in the library in Lady Britomart Undershaft's house in Wilton Crescent. A large and comfortable settee is in the middle of the room, upholstered in dark leather. A person sitting on it (it is vacant at present) would have, on his right, Lady Britomart's writing table, with the lady herself busy at it; a smaller writing table behind him on his left; the door behind him on Lady Britomart's side; and a window seat directly on his left. Near the window is an empty armchair. Lady Britomart is a woman of fifty or thereabouts, well dressed and yet careless of her dress, well bred and quite reckless of her breeding, well mannered and yet appallingly outspoken and indifferent to the opinion of her interlocutors, amiable and yet peremptory, arbitrary, and hightempered to the last bearable degree, and withal a very typical managing matron of the upper
class, treated as a naughty child until she grew into a scolding mother, and finally settling down with plenty of practical ability and wordly experience, limited in the oddest way with domestic and class limitations, conceiving the universe exactly as if it were a large house in Wilton Crescent, though handling her corner of it very effectively on that assumption, and being quite enlightened as to the books in the library, the pictures on the walls, the music in the portfolio, and the articles in the papers. Her son, Stephen, comes in. He is a gravely correct young man under 25, taking himself very seriously, but still in some awe of his mother, from childish habit and bachelor shyness rather than from any weakness of character.] 1 STEPHEN: 2 LADY B: What's the matter? Presently, Stephen.
[Stephen walks submissively to the settee and sits down. He takes up a Liberal weekly called The Speaker.] 3 LADY B: 4 STEPHEN: 5 LADY B: Don't begin to read, Stephen. I shall require all your attention. It was only while I was waiting--Don't make excuses, Stephen. [He puts down The Speaker] Now! [She finishes her writing; rises; and comes to the settee] I have not kept you waiting very long, I think. 6 STEPHEN: 7 LADY B: Not at all, mother. Bring me my cushion. [He takes the cushion from the chair at the desk and arranges it for her as she sits down on the settee.] Sit down. [He sits down and fingers his tie nervously] Don't fiddle with your tie, Stephen; there is nothing the matter with it. 8 STEPHEN: 9 LADY B: 10 STEPHEN: 11 LADY B: I beg your pardon. [He fiddles with his watch chain instead.] Now are you attending to me, Stephen? Of course, mother. No: it's not of course. I want something much more than your everyday matter-of-course attention. I am going to speak to you very seriously, Stephen. I wish you would let that watch-chain alone. 12 STEPHEN: 13 LADY B [astonished]: [Hastily relinquishing the chain] Have I done anything to annoy you, mother? If so, it was quite unintentional. Nonsense! [With some remorse] My poor boy, did you think I was angry with you?
14 STEPHEN: 15 LADY B [squaring herself at him rather aggressively]: 16 STEPHEN: [amazed]: 17 LADY B:
What is it then, mother? You are making me very uneasy. Stephen: may I ask how soon you intend to realize that you are a grown-up man, and that I am only a woman?
Only a--Don't repeat my words, please: it is a most aggravating habit. You must learn to face life seriously, Stephen. I really cannot bear the whole burden of our family affairs any longer. You must advise me: you must assume the responsibility.
18 STEPHEN: 19 LADY B:
I! Yes, you, of course. You were 24 last June. You've been at Harrow and Cambridge. You've been to India and Japan. You must know a lot of things, now; unless you have wasted your time most scandalously. Well, advise me.
20 STEPHEN [much perplexed]: 21 LADY B: 22 STEPHEN: 23 LADY B: 24 STEPHEN [troubled]:
You know I have never interfered in the household--No. I should think not. I don't want you to order the dinner. I mean in our family affairs. Well, you must interfere now; for they are getting quite beyond me. I have thought sometimes that perhaps I ought; but, really, mother, I know so little about them; and what I do know is so painful! it is so impossible to mention some things to you--- [he stops, ashamed].
25 LADY B: 26 STEPHEN [almost inaudibly]: 27 LADY B:
I suppose you mean your father. Yes. My dear: we can't go on all our lives not mentioning him. Of course you were quite right not to open the subject until I asked you to; but you are old enough now to be taken into my confidence, and to help me to deal with him about the girls.
28 STEPHEN: 29 LADY B [complacently]:
But the girls are all right. They are engaged. Yes: I have made a very good match for Sarah. Charles Lomax will be a millionaire at 35. But that is ten years ahead; and in the meantime his trustees cannot under the terms of his father's will allow him more than 800 a year.
But the will also says that if he increases his income by his own exertions, they may double the increase. Charles Lomax's exertions are much more likely to decrease his income than to increase it . . .
George Bernard Shaw
Watch the 'Major Barbara' video clip.
Task B - Initial impressions

When we move onto 'Analysing Major Barbara' we will want you to look, one at a time, at the turntaking structure of the extract. First of all, though, discuss with your partner your intuitions concerning how you see the power relation between the two characters, and point out anything else in terms of their relationship which you think might be relevant or interesting. Jot down anything that occurs to you as evidence for your views, and then compare your views with ours.
Task B - Our answer

Lady Britomart appears to be a very overbearing and domineering woman. She thus contrasts with the stereotypical 'soft, supportive and caring' image we normally assume for women, and for mothers in particular. She is almost as domineering as Lady Bracknell in Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. She completely controls her son, Stephen, even though he is in his twenties, and, indeed, in some ways she appears to treat him as if he were still a small boy. Stephen makes the occasional half-hearted attempt to throw off his mother's yoke, but basically he seems pretty cowed by her in this scene. But at the same time Lady Britomart has an image of herself which is at odds with how she behaves. She does not seem to realise the effect that she has on others (cf. 'My poor boy, did you think I was angry with you?' in turn 13, when her previous behaviour has been perfectly consistent with the interpretation she denies) and she appears to see herself as weaker than she actually is
(she declares that she is 'only a woman' in turn 15). This is where much of the humour comes from in the piece - the clear lack if fit between her actual behaviour and her self-image. We will now systematically examine the turn-taking structure of the extract to see how it relates to our intuitions about the two characters. We will collect the turn-taking data and use it to test out our interpretative hypotheses.
Analysing Major Barbara

Now that you have experienced the extract from Major Barbara and thought about it in general interpretative terms, we need to analyse the text using the kind of approach we explored in Task B of Conversational structure and Power. The tasks below are designed to help you go through the text systematically and build up an analytical profile of it, so that you can compare the analysis, the interpretative comments you, and we, came up with on the previous page. Note: During the following tasks you can access the passage using the link under the 'useful links' section of the menu on the left.
Task A - Who has the longest turns? Task B - Who has the most turns? Task C - Who interrupts who? Task D - Who allocates turns to who, if at all? Task E - Who initiates the conversational exchanges and who responds? Task F - Who uses coercive speech acts? Task G - Who controls the topic? Task H - What terms of address do the two characters use towards each other? Task I - Look back at the table of prototypical turn-taking factors and compare what we have found in Major Barbara extract. Task J - Anything else of significance?
Task A - Who has the longest turns?

The obvious way to answer this question is to count the words of each character and then divide the total by the number of turns that character has, to get an overall average. When we do such work it can also be worth noting the 'spread' from the average (what the statisticians call 'standard deviation'), in order to see whether each turn is near the average for the relevant character, or whether there are big variations caused by very long or very short turns (in which case it would be sensible to look at the deviations in a bit more detail). We won't actually calculate the standard deviation statistically here, but just note any big variations.
When you have calculated the averages and looked for deviations from the average, compare your findings with ours.
Task A - Our answer

Character Words Turns Average
Lady Britomart Stephen
355 131
16 15
22.2 8.7
On this calculation Lady Britomart's average is roughly two and a half times more than Stephen's, suggesting her conversational dominance. You may get slightly different figures from us, depending upon how you treated hyphenations, apostrophes, and so on. But the overall pattern is unlikely to be significantly different. Arguably, the discrepancy between the two characters is even higher than this. Note that, in order to limit the task for you we ended the extract in the middle of one of Lady Britomart's turns. The whole turn, of which we have given you just 15 words, is actually 126 words long! And in our representation of the text we have treated turns 2 and 3 as two separate turns for Lady Britomart, because of what, from the stage directions, look like a significant pause. If these two turns were treated as one, the average number of words per turn for Lady Britomart would increase even further. Stephen's turns vary between 1 and 14 words. Lady Britomart's vary between 2 and 41 words (or 126 words if you include the whole of the last turn). So her variation is much larger than Stephen's, reflecting changes in her attitude. Her two-word utterance 'Presently Stephen' in turn 2, when she stops him from talking while she finishes writing, seems very curt. Her longest turn in our extract (turn 19) is, ironically, when she is telling Stephen that he must take more responsibility and advise her.
Task B - Who has the most turns?

Count the turns for each character and compare them
Task B - Our answer

Stephen has 15 and Lady Britomart 16 (see the table in our answer to Task A). As there are only two participants in the conversation, their turn-distribution is bound to be pretty even, and so nothing really significant can come out this comparison. The biggest factors are our decisions about where to start and finish the extract and whether to treat turns 2 and 3 as one turn or two. There is, however, a bit of an issue about whether Lady Britomart effectively has another, nonlinguistic, turn just before Stephen's first turn. We will return to this in our comments on Task E
Task C - Who interrupts who?

Identify any interruptions and count up how many times each character interrupts the other. Then compare your findings with ours. Remember that not everything ending in a dash or continuation marks necessarily counts as an interruption. It is also worth remembering in general terms that the punctuation used to signal an interruption can vary a bit from one dramatist to another, and sometimes from one edition to another of the same play, depending upon publisher conventions.
Task C - Our answer

Character Interruptions of other character's talk
Lady Britomart Stephen
3 0
The pattern is pretty clear. Lady Britomart interrupts Stephen three times but he never interrupts her. Stephen is interrupted by Lady Britomart in the following turn-pairs: 4/5; 16/17; 20/21. He also does not finish turn 24, but the stage direction makes clear that this is not an interruption, in spite of having the same orthography.
Analysing Major Barbara

Task D - Who allocates turns to who, if at all?
Identify any examples you can find of turn-allocation, and establish who is allocating turns to who.
Task D - Our answer

Given that this is a two-party conversation, we would not expect the need for turn-allocation devices, as these are normally only necessary when there are three or more participants in a conversation. But actually Lady Britomart does indulge in turn-allocation, helping to indicate the extent of her domination of Stephen:
Turn 2:
She tells Stephen that it is not appropriate for him to take a turn, effectively silencing him.
Turn 5:
She tells Stephen not to make excuses. This could be seen as silencing him again or determining for him the kinds of turn he is allowed/not allowed to make.
Turn 17: She tells Stephen not to repeat her words (determining the kind of contribution he can make) at the beginning of this turn, and at the end of it she allocates another turn to him, along with the speech act character it should have ('You must advise me'). Turn 17: She tells Stephen he must 'interfere'. Stephen does not allocate turns to his mother, of course. Who would dare?
Task E - Who initiates the conversational exchanges and who responds?

Go through the passage carefully, looking for examples of initiations and responses. Which character is associated with which turn-taking position?
Task E - Our answer

Although Stephen says the first words of the play, it is not at all clear that his first turn counts as an initiation. Its content ('What's the matter?') and the fact that Lady Britomart appears to be concentrating on what she is writing, suggests that she has probably sent a message with one of the servants, telling him to come and see her. Hence although Turn 1 is a question, it appears to be a response, not an initiation. Throughout the extract Lady Britomart initiates the conversational exchanges and Stephen is in the secondary, responding position. When Lady Britomart does appear to respond to something Stephen has said it is usually the case that his utterance, in turn, was a response to a previous initiation by her. A good example of this is turns 15-19: 15 LADY B [squaring herself at Stephen: may I ask how soon you intend to realize that his rather aggressively]: 16 STEPHEN: [amazed]: Only a--you are a grown-up man, and that I am only a woman?
17 LADY B:
Don't repeat my words, please: it is a most aggravating habit. You must learn to face life seriously, Stephen. I really cannot bear the whole burden of our family affairs any longer. You must advise me: you must assume the responsibility.
I! Yes, you, of course. You were 24 last June. You've been at Harrow and Cambridge. You've been to India and Japan. You must know a lot of things, now; unless you have wasted your time most scandalously. Well, advise me.
Lady Britomart initiates the sequence in turn 15. Stephen responds in 16, and in 17 Lady Britomart rules out his response and then reinitiates. Stephen responds to that initation in 18, and in 19 his mother responds to that response and re-initiates again
Task F - Who uses coercive speech acts?

Go through the passage carefully looking for examples of possible commands and compare your findings with ours
Task F - Our answer

Stephen does not coerce his mother at all in speech act terms. But at a conservative estimate, she commands him at least nine times in 16 turns. Lady Britomart orders Stephen not to read in turn 3, not to make excuses in 5, to bring her cushion and not to fiddle with his tie in 7. Her interrogative structure in 9 is effectively telling him pay attention. In 11 her declarative structure about her wishes in relation to his activity with his watch chain is effectively a command to him not to fiddle with it. In 17 she tells him not to repeat her words and also to advise him, and she repeats the latter command in 19. There are two or three less clear possibilities of coercive speech acts, but if we just stick to the clearer cases the pattern of Lady Britomart's coerciveness and Stephen's submission is very clear indeed.
Task G - Who controls the topic?

Go through the passage carefully looking for examples where one character imposes a particular topic of talk on the other and compare your findings with ours.
Task G - Our answer

Lady Britomart initiates throughout and Stephen only attempts the occasional initiation. In turn 11, after the preliminaries in which she mainly controls Stephen's non-verbal behaviour, Lady Britomart indicates that she wants to talk to him about a serious matter, and in 15 and 17 she reveals the topic as their respective roles in running the household. She goes on to indicate why he is ready to take on more responsibility. Even when Stephen says he knows too little about the family affairs he is talking in response to his mother's topic. He almost manages to bring up a new topic (his father) in turn 24, but he can't quite manage it and his mother has to introduce it for him in 25, the turn where she raises the topic of her daughters for the first time. Lady Britomart introduces Charles Lomax in 29, and even when Stephen tries to argue against what she says about him, in turn 30, he is following her topic. In the final turn she effectively tells him he is wrong, in any case.
Task H - What terms of address do the two characters use towards each other?
Go through the passage carefully looking address terms and work out what you think the pattern reveals.
Task H - Our answer

Lady Britomart uses Stephen's first name to address him eight times in 16 turns. Given that there are only two people in the conversation, she does not need to pick him out from a conversational crowd when she addresses him, and so this remarkably frequent use seems designed to mark the asymmetry of the social power relation between them. Stephen reflects this asymmetry from the opposite perspective by using 'mother' four times in his 15 turns. The only other address term used is 'my poor boy' in turn 13, which, in contrast to Lady Britomart's other address terms and in parallel to everything else we have seen about the conversation, is clearly intended by Shaw to be humorous.
Task I - Look back at the table of prototypical turn-taking factors and compare what we have found in Major Barbara extract.
Go back to the pattern of prototypical turn-taking behaviour we constructed intuitively in relation to conversational structure and power, and compare what we have found for Lady Britomart and Stephen with the prototypes we began with. What does the comparison tell us about Lady Britomart and Stephen?
Task I - Our answer

Lady Britomart and Stephen respectively fit the powerful and powerless prototypes completely. Indeed, given the heavy patterning in relation to each of the factors we have examined, they are clearly very extreme cases of the dominating and dominated character types. This in turn is where some of the humour of the extract comes. Lady Britomart, in particular, is not just an exemplar of the conversational behaviour of the powerful, she is a massive over-exemplar, someone who has a ludicrous cornucopia of both social and personal power.
Task J - Anything else of significance?

It is always worth remembering, when you get to the end of an exhaustive (and exhausting!) analysis like this, that going systematically through a checklist of questions of factors can lead you to forget about other factors which are also important. So go back through the passage and note down anything else which you feel is significant in relation to (i.e. for or against) those initial impressions we started off with in Task B.
Task J - Anything else of significance?

You may have noted other things, but there are a couple of points which we have not yet covered and which we think are significant: We noted in our initial interpretative remarks that Lady Britomart treats her adult son as if he was a little boy. The heavy use of the direct address term 'Stephen' and the heavy use of commands contribute to that effect. But it is also worth noting that the pattern of negative structures in many of those commands increases the feeling that she treats him like an infant. This is because negative commands are a common feature of parent-child interaction. Small children are a danger to themselves, to others and to property. So parents are forever telling them NOT to do things, and negative commands become part of our schematic assumptions for parent-infant interaction. In our answer to Task F, we pointed out that Lady Britomart commands Stephen on nine clear occasions. Of these nine, five are negative commands. We have already noted the ludicrousness of Lady Britomart ordering her son to 'advise' her and 'assume the responsibility'. Indeed, it is so ludicrous that it borders on the theatre of the absurd. Something similar in general effect seems to be going on in turn 15:
15 LADY B [squaring herself at him rather aggressively]:
Stephen: may I ask how soon you intend to realize that you are a grown-up man, and that I am only a woman?
Here, 'to realize that . . .' is nested/embedded grammatically under 'intend'. But 'intend' is an intentional verb and 'realize' is something that cannot possibly be intended - it is outside the perceiver's control. This grammatical domination of an 'accidental' verb by an intentional is contradictory in semantic terms and also absurd. As it is Lady Britomart who utters the sentence, as with the other factors we have noticed, this structuring is an absurd (and humorous) reflection on her. Her commanding Stephen in 23 to interfere in what has, up until now, been her sole preserve is another example of this kind of absurdity.
Topic 11 'tool' Summary

In this topic we have explored in general terms the discourse architecture of drama and the kinds of analysis we will need to undertake in order to account for it adequately. We have also explored in detail how turn-taking patterns and other aspects of conversational structure can reveal power relations among participants in conversations and we have applied what we have seen about turn-taking and power in conversations to an extract from the beginning of Shaw's Major Barbara in order to reveal the relationship between the two characters, how it is created in the text and some of the humorous and absurd characteristics of this particular dramatic dialogue.

This topic is devoted to beginning to understand what dramatic critics call the 'meaning between the lines'. Although 'meaning between the lines' is usually talked about in relation to plays in particular, in fact it is a common phenomenon in poems and novels too, and indeed all speech and writing. People often say (or write) one thing but mean another. Let's pretend that we have just gone to see the performance of a play together. As we are coming out of the theatre you ask me: 'What did you think of the play?' and I reply: 'The costumes were very impressive
Although you know that I thought highly of the costumes you also know that I probably didn't think much of the theatrical experience overall. We need to understand how such extra (inferred) meaning comes about, and how understanding this kind of process can be used to interpret dramatic texts in particular, but also other texts and talk. In session A of this topic we will first look at 'meaning between the lines' in relation to a theory first proposed by an American philosopher, Paul Grice called the Cooperative Principle in conversation. We will then go on in session B to look at Politeness Theory, as politeness (and also impoliteness) is also something which is usually not made explicit, but inferred in conversational exchanges. We will continue to explore the 'meaning between the lines', or what the famous 20th century Russian director Stanislawski called the 'sub-text' in Topic 13, the last main topic of the course, where we will look at the role of assumed knowledge in understanding drama.
Inference and the Discourse Architecture of Drama

Task A - Inference in the 'What did you think of the play?' example Task B - Overhearers and audiences (and dramatic irony)
Inference and the Discourse Architecture of Drama

Task A - Inference in the 'What did you think of the play?' example
Let's first go back to the example we introduced on the previous page: We have just gone to see the performance of a play together. As we are coming out of the theatre you ask me:
'What did you think of the play?' and I reply: 'The costumes were very impressive' Although you know that I was impressed by the costumes, you also know that I probably didn't think much of the theatrical experience overall.
Try to work out how you can get from what is said in context to the kind of meaning suggested for it. Then compare your account with ours.
Task A - Our answer

You can get to the 'meaning between the lines' by using a chain of inference something like this: You have asked me what I thought about the play and I could have given you a straightforward answer ('I liked it'/'I didn't like it') but have not done so. Socially the preferred answer would have been 'I liked it', but I didn't say that, and so you can infer that I can't truthfully say that, or I would have done so. It would be difficult to be openly critical ('I didn't like it') while leaving the theatre, as other people (e.g. the director) might overhear the remark, and be offended. I made a positive remark about the costumes, which is polite, socially acceptable conversational behaviour. But other factors (e.g. how well the play was written, how good/innovative the director's interpretation of it is, how well it was acted) are usually more important when judging a play and its performance. Therefore I must feel that I cannot say positive things about any of these more important factors and so I am leading you to infer that I was not impressed by any of them, and hence I was not impressed by the play and its performance overall. What we need to understand in order to account for the 'meaning between the lines', or 'sub-text', are the mechanisms whereby these kinds of chains of inference can be constructed in particular contexts. This is what we will begin to explore on the 'Grice's Cooperative Principle' page
Task B - Overhearers and audiences (and dramatic irony)

Let's pretend for a moment that someone else (let's call him Big Ears) was behind us as we walked out of the theatre and overheard the snippet of conversation we have just discussed in Task A. Note that Big Ears would be able to understand what you understood because he would have the same linguistic and contextual information. An audience in a theatre watching a conversation between two characters (or someone reading the play) would be in the same position as Big Ears, and would be able to infer this kind of knowledge 'between the lines'. But there is also a difference in that dramatic audiences and readers of plays are 'licensed overhearers' in the sense that we, the audience/readers are intended by the dramatist to overhear and understand what is going on when the characters talk to one another. This follows from the
'doubled discourse' nature of drama that we explored in Task B of the 'Analysing drama preliminary matters' page in Topic 11. So far we have assumed that the audience and the characters on stage will be able to infer the same knowledge. But the doubled discourse structure of drama also enables a playwright to communicate additional things to the audience/reader, which some, or all, of the characters will not know. It is this use of the discourse architecture of drama that leads to what critics call dramatic irony'. We will use as an example a speech by Algernon, a 19th century upper class layabout, to his aunt, Lady Bracknell, from near the beginning of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. Algernon has just told his friend Jack that he has invented another friend, called Bunbury. Whenever Algernon wants to get out of a social engagement he conveniently pretends that Bunbury is ill, and that he must visit him. Then, a little later, Lady Bracknell arrives and reminds him that he is invited to dinner with her that evening: Algernon: Lady Bracknell: Algernon: I am afraid, Aunt Augusta, I shall have to give up the pleasure of dining with you tonight after all. (frowning) I hope not, Algernon. It would put my table completely out. Your uncle would have to dine upstairs. Fortunately he is accustomed to that. It is a great bore, and, I need hardly say, a terrible disappointment to me, but the fact is that I have just had a telegram to say that my poor friend Bunbury is very ill again. (Exchanges glances with Jack.) They seem to think I should be with him. (Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1) Using the doubled discourse architecture of drama, explain what the audience knows at the end of Algernon's second speech, how this is different from what Lady Bracknell knows, and what it tells the audience about Algernon.
Task B - Our answer

Lady Bracknell knows that Algernon is not coming to dinner because (she thinks) that his friend Bunbury is ill. Jack and the audience know that Algernon is lying (there is no Bunbury) and that he is using Bunbury's fictitious illness to get out of the dinner party. In addition, we can infer some things about Algernon's character. He is inventive and he will lie to get his way. These last things would seem to be matters which Wilde wants the audience, as licensed overhearers to infer about Algernon. Hence these 'meanings between the lines' operate at
the author-audience level but not at the character level in the play (except for Jack, who has the same contextual knowledge as us, and so could infer the same things).
Grice's Cooperative Principle

Task A - What is Grice's Cooperative Principle in Conversation? Task B - Coming out of the theatre again Task C - The Importance of Being Earnest again
Grice's Cooperative Principle

Task A - What is Grice's Cooperative Principle in Conversation?
We will use Paul Grice's (1975) influential 'Cooperative Principle' approach to describe how we infer unstated meanings in ordinary conversations and apply this to dramatic conversations. Your role in this task is to read and understand. Then, in subsequent tasks we will apply Gricean analysis to a series of brief examples to help you understand how to apply Gricean analysis.
Conversational cooperation
Grice says that when we communicate we assume, without realising it, that we, and the people we are talking to, will be conversationally cooperative - we will cooperate to achieve mutual conversational ends. This conversational cooperation even works when we are not being cooperative socially. So, for example, we can be arguing with one another angrily and yet we will still cooperate quite a lot conversationally to achieve the argument. This conversational cooperation manifests itself, according to Grice, in a number of conversational MAXIMS, as he calls them, which we feel the need to abide by. These maxims look at first sight like rules, but they appear to be broken more often than grammatical or phonological rules are, for example, as we will see later, and this is why Grice uses the term 'maxim' rather than 'rule'. Here are the four maxims (there may well be more) which Grice says we all try to adhere to in conversation. You can click on each one and get an explanatory comment: The conversational maxims Maxim of quantity (quantity of information) Give the most helpful amount of information.
Maxim of quality (quality of information) Do not say what you believe to be false.
Maxim of relation Be relevant.
Maxim of manner Put what you say in the clearest, briefest, and most orderly manner.
Breaking the maxims

We have already pointed out that the conversational maxims are broken rather more often than lingustic rules (e.g. in grammar). We can break the conversational maxims in two main ways: We can VIOLATE them
We can FLOUT them
Re-examining the examples we have already looked at It is the flouting of maxims which constitute their 'extra-breaking' character, as compared with linguistic rules. Essentially maxim-flouting is conversationally cooperative because all the participants in the conversation can see that a maxim has been broken on purpose by the speaker or writer in order to create an extra layer of meaning which is accessible by inference. In the following tasks we will look again at the two examples we have already considered on the 'Inference and the discourse architecture of drama' page. In each case when we analyse a text or discourse we will need to consider (1) what maxim(s) have been broken, (2) whether the break constitutes a violation or a flout and (3) what implicature, if any, arises as a result of the break. Of
course we have already covered (3) in the answers to the exercises on the 'Inference and the discourse architecture of drama' page, so we don't need to go through that again in any detail.
Reference Grice, H. P. (1975) 'Logic and conversation'. In P. Cole and J. Morgan (eds) Studies in Syntax and Semantics III: Speech Acts, New York: Academic Press, pp. 183-98.
Task B - Coming out of the theatre again

Here is the text again, and below it we have provided a link to our discussion of our understanding of it. You need to decide (1) what maxim(s) have been broken, (2) whether the break constitutes a violation or a flout and what the general interpretative consequences are: We have just gone to see the performance of a play together. As we are coming out of the theatre you ask me: 'What did you think of the play?' and I reply: 'The costumes were very impressive' You can look back at our answer to Task A on the 'Inference and the discourse architecture of drama' page.
Task B - Our answer

The maxim of RELATION is broken in the response to the question as it is not a straightforward answer to the question. This lack of a straightforward relation between the question and answer is obvious to all. So the maxim-break is a FLOUT and the extra meaning (I didn't think much of the play) is an IMPLICATURE, intended by the speaker which the hearer can work out
Task C - The Importance of Being Earnest again

As with the previous task, you need to decide for Algernon's final speech in the extract below (1) what maxim(s) have been broken, (2) whether the break constitutes a violation or a flout and what the general interpretative consequences are: [Context: Algernon has just told his friend Jack that he has invented another friend, called Bunbury. Whenever Algernon wants to get out of a social engagement he conveniently pretends that
Bunbury is ill, and that he must visit him. Then, a little later, Lady Bracknell arrives and reminds him that he is invited to dinner with her that evening.] Algernon: Lady Bracknell: Algernon: I am afraid, Aunt Augusta, I shall have to give up the pleasure of dining with you tonight after all. (frowning) I hope not, Algernon. It would put my table completely out. Your uncle would have to dine upstairs. Fortunately he is accustomed to that. It is a great bore, and, I need hardly say, a terrible disappointment to me, but the fact is that I have just had a telegram to say that my poor friend Bunbury is very ill again. (Exchanges glances with Jack.) They seem to think I should be with him.
(Oscar Wilde
, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1)
Task C - Our answer

The first thing we need to take account of is that, because this is part of a play, there are two levels of discourse (author-audience and character-character) at which maxims may be broken, and that the character of the break may not be the same at the two different levels. At the character-character level in terms of the relation between Algernon and his aunt, Algernon VIOLATES the maxim of QUALITY a large number of times in a very short space. It is not a great bore for him, it is not a disappointment for him, he has not received a telegram, there is no friend called Bunbury, and so he can't be ill, and there are no 'they' suggesting that he should hasten to Bunbury's side. And it is clear that Lady Bracknell is not meant to know that he is not telling the truth. However, at the author-audience level, and also at the character-character level in terms of the relation between Algernon and his friend, Jack (note the stage direction), what we see here is not a VIOLATION but a FLOUT. Hence we conclude that Oscar Wilde is showing us that Algernon is tricking Lady Bracknell, and Algernon is also displaying that trickery to Jack. It is also worth noting that the maxim of MANNER is also broken during this speech. Algernon is over-wordy (he does not need to say 'I need hardly say' or 'the fact is' in order to get his message over, and he would also be less obscure if he omitted 'seem to' in the last sentence as well. These breaks look like FLOUTS at both discourse levels, but with different implicatures. They must be noticeable to Lady Bracknell, who is likely to interpret them as indicating Algernon's sadness at having to break one social commitment for another. But because of the context of the QUALITY FLOUTS at the author-audience level that we have already noticed, we can see that they also
amount to an indication (to us by Wilde and to Jack by Algernon) of Algernon's verbal plausibility as he tricks his aunt.
Practising Gricean Analysis

In this section you can practise Gricean analysis on a series of small-scale examples.
Task A - Kate is nice Task B - 'I've got a meeting at 3.30' Task C - Wild Thing Task D - 'He's not the politest person I've met' Task E - The return of a Shakespearean example Task F - A bit more in formation about how the Gricean maxims operate
Task A - Kate is nice

Two students, A and B are talking about two other students. What Gricean maxim does B flout, and what is the implicature that follows from the flout? A: Do you like John and Kate? B: Kate is fun.
Task A - Our answer

B flouts the maxim of quantity by answering a question about two people as if it were a question about just one of them. Because she says Kate is nice, but says nothing about John, we can infer that B is implicating that John is not fun.
Task B - 'I've got a meeting at 3.30'

Two married university lecturers are talking about who is going to get the children from school. What maxim does B flout and what implicature follows from it? A: Who is picking up the children today? B: I've got a meeting at 3.30.
Task B - Our answer

B flouts the maxim of relation by not giving the identity of the person asked about in in A's question. The implicature is that B can't pick up the children because of the work commitment, and is therefore suggesting, by extension, that A should
Task C - Wild Thing

Below are the first two lines of the song 'Wild Thing' by the song writer Chip Taylor. 'Wild Thing' became a hit record for a group called The Troggs in 1966. What maxim is flouted in line 2 and what implicature follows? Wild thing You make my heart sing
Task C - Our answer

'You make my heart sing ' flouts the maxim of quality. Hearts can't literally sing. [Note that in terms of foregrounding theory this is a semantic deviation and a metaphor. Many (but not all) metaphors flout the maxim of quality.] The singer of the song is male, presumably (this fits with the stereotype for 1960s pop songs, and the lead singer - and indeed the rest of the group - were male). So the song appears to be a direct address to a young woman (this is typical of the genre), leading to the implicature that the singer is declaring strong love/attraction for the to the young woman.
Task D - 'He's not the politest person I've met'

You ask a friend what he thinks of a lecturer who has a reputation for being sarcastic.What maxim is flouted, and what implicature is produced in the following reply? He's not the politest person I've met.
Task D - Our answer

This response flouts the maxim of manner because of the use of negation here. Your friend could have expressed roughly the same content by using a positive expression like 'He's rude'. The implicature is that your friend thinks the person is rude but doesn't want to say so directly for some reason (perhaps because he does not like being impolite about others, perhaps because he is worried that someone may overhear him etc).
Task E - The return of a Shakespearean example

We first came across the following two lines in Task C of the 'Analysing drama - preliminary matters' page in Topic 11. You may find it helpful to remind yourself of what we discovered in that task before completing this one. There are a number of maxims flouted in these two lines. Try to identify them all, the implicatures which result from each flout, and how they contribute to the overall effect.
FALSTAFF: KING:
My King! My Jove! I speak to thee, my heart! I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers.
Task E - Our answer

Falstaff's line Falstaff flouts the maxim of quality in 'My Jove' and again in 'my heart', neither of which can be literally true. The obvious hyperbole implicates his strong attachment to King Henry V (note how similar this is to the 'Wild Thing' example in Task C). 'I speak to thee' flouts the maxim of quantity. He says something that the king must already know because he can clearly hear him speaking. The implicature that follows in context is that Falstaff is expecting the king to take special account of him - if he is speaking, the king should take notice. King Henry V's line Henry clearly flouts the maxim of quality in 'I know thee not', which is clearly false to all concerned. This implicates that he is refusing to acknowledge his previous close personal, relationship with Falstaff. 'Old man' flouts the maxim of quantity. Falstaff, and everyone else present, knows he is old. So this is clearly rude (nobody likes to be told they are old) and implicates that Falstaff has no physical power (in addition to the lack of social power) over the king. This rudeness is followed up by the final command in the line, where Henry demonstrates his new-found power by ordering Falstaff to get on his knees and pray. He does not say what Falstaff has to pray about, but in context the obvious inference is that he needs to pray that the king will not order that unpleasant things be done to him.
Task F - A bit more information about how the Gricean maxims operate
The examples we have looked at so far have been small-scale and designed to help you spot individual maxims being flouted and infer what is implicated in context. But it is important to remember that in real-life examples things might be a bit more complex:
1. The examples we have looked at so far have tended to be short sentences/utterances. But the domain over which a maxim might operate can be shorter than a sentence/utterance and sometimes longer than a sentence. 2. One utterance or stretch of text might break more than one maxim at the same time. 3. One maxim might be broken in order to preserve another (for example you might break the manner maxim to avoid saying something you think is untrue, and so uphold the quality maxim). 4. Similarly, a maxim might be broken in order to preserve politeness (indeed, Grice himself suggested politeness as another possible candidate for being a conversational maxim). We will examine politeness as a separate phenomenon in session B. 5. When an implicature that follows from the flouting of a maxim is spelled out, there is bound to be some variation between one person's account and another's because different people are bound to choose different words and grammatical structures. This is bound to result in some interpretative variability. But it is also important to note that the variability will usually be within a rather narrow range.
Top Girls
On this page we are going to look at an extract from Top Girls by Caryl Churchill , and use the Gricean analysis we have been learning about in this topic to explore the 'meaning between the lines' in the conversation- the unstated but nonetheless understood meanings, character attitudes etc. that we can perceive 'behind' or 'underneath' what is said. We won't look at every single turn because that would take too long. But by the time you finish the tasks on this page you should be able to see how you can use Gricean, and other forms of analysis, on all turns and turncombinations in a text to build up an analytical picture of what is going on in it in interpretative terms.
Task A - Initial engagement with the text Task B - Turns 1 - 4 Task C - Turns 5 - 8 Task D - Turns 22 - 25
Task A - Initial engagement with the text

Read the text below and then watch the videoclip performance. After you feel you have come to terms with the extract, write down what you feel, in general terms, is the 'subtext' of the relationship between the characters Win and Louise. What feelings and attitudes come through what is said?
[Context: Win works as an adviser at the Top Girls employment agency, helping people find employment. Louise has come to the agency for help, and this is the first meeting between the two women.] 1. WIN: 2. LOUISE: 3. WIN: 4. LOUISE: 5. WIN: 6. LOUISE: 7. WIN: 8. LOUISE: 9. WIN: 10. LOUISE: 11. WIN: 12. LOUISE: 13. WIN: 14. LOUISE: 15. WIN: 16. LOUISE: 17. WIN: 18. LOUISE: 19. WIN: Now, Louise, hello. I have your details here. You've been very loyal to the one job I see. Yes I have. Twenty years is a long time in one place. I feel it is. I feel it's time to move on. And you are what age now? I'm in my early forties. Exactly? Forty-six. It's not necessarily a handicap. Well it is of course, we have to face that. But it's not necessarily a disabling handicap. Experience does count for something. I hope so. Now between ourselves is there any trouble, any reason why you're leaving that wouldn't appear on the form? Nothing like that. Like what? Nothing at all. No long term understandings come to a sudden end, making for an insupportable atmosphere? I've always completely avoided anything like that at all. No personality clashes with your immediate superiors or inferiors? I've always taken care to get on very well with everyone. I only ask because it can affect the reference and it also affects your motivation. I want to be quite clear why you're moving on. So I take it the job itself no longer satisfies you. Is it the money? 20. LOUISE: 21. WIN: 22. LOUISE: 23. WIN: 24. LOUISE: 25. WIN: It's partly the money. It's not so much the money. Nine thousand is very respectable. Have you dependants? No, no dependants. My mother died. So why are you making a change? Other people make changes. But why are you, now, after spending most of your life in one place? (Top Girls, by Caryl Churchill, Act 2, Scene 3 - an interview at the employment agency)
View 'Top Girls' video clip
Task A - Initial engagement with the text

Read the text below and then watch the videoclip performance. After you feel you have come to terms with the extract, write down what you feel, in general terms, is the 'subtext' of the relationship between the characters Win and Louise. What feelings and attitudes come through what is said? [Context: Win works as an adviser at the Top Girls employment agency, helping people find employment. Louise has come to the agency for help, and this is the first meeting between the two women.] 1. WIN: 2. LOUISE: 3. WIN: 4. LOUISE: 5. WIN: 6. LOUISE: 7. WIN: 8. LOUISE: 9. WIN: 10. LOUISE: 11. WIN: 12. LOUISE: 13. WIN: 14. LOUISE: 15. WIN: 16. LOUISE: 17. WIN: 18. LOUISE: 19. WIN: Now, Louise, hello. I have your details here. You've been very loyal to the one job I see. Yes I have. Twenty years is a long time in one place. I feel it is. I feel it's time to move on. And you are what age now? I'm in my early forties. Exactly? Forty-six. It's not necessarily a handicap. Well it is of course, we have to face that. But it's not necessarily a disabling handicap. Experience does count for something. I hope so. Now between ourselves is there any trouble, any reason why you're leaving that wouldn't appear on the form? Nothing like that. Like what? Nothing at all. No long term understandings come to a sudden end, making for an insupportable atmosphere? I've always completely avoided anything like that at all. No personality clashes with your immediate superiors or inferiors? I've always taken care to get on very well with everyone. I only ask because it can affect the reference and it also affects your motivation. I want to be quite clear why you're moving on. So I take it the job itself no longer satisfies you. Is it the money?
20. LOUISE: 21. WIN: 22. LOUISE: 23. WIN: 24. LOUISE: 25. WIN:
It's partly the money. It's not so much the money. Nine thousand is very respectable. Have you dependants? No, no dependants. My mother died. So why are you making a change? Other people make changes. But why are you, now, after spending most of your life in one place?
(Top Girls, by Caryl Churchill, Act 2, Scene 3 - an interview at the employment agency)
View 'Top Girls' video clip
Task A - Our answer

Win, who works for the Top Girls employment agency, is interviewing Louise in order to find out how best to advise her. As controller of the interview she is in a relatively powerful position institutionally. But her role is to help and advise Louise, to be supportive towards her, which lessens the power differential somewhat. Nonetheless, in turf-taking terms Win is in control, taking up the initiating, questioning role in the conversation, and controlling the topic. What seems odd about this interaction is that in spite of the fact that Louise has come to the agency for help she seems extremely defensive when answering Win's questions. As a consequence of this, Win, who starts by asking the questions she needs to have answered in a relatively indirect and polite way, has to become more and more pushy and direct as the conversation proceeds. This sets up some issues we feel need to be resolved later in the text why is Louise acting in this way, and how will the relationship between Win and Louise develop?
Task B - Turns 1 - 4
Note: you can find a link the text using under 'useful links' section of the menu on the left Look carefully at these four turns, a turn at a time, in terms of Gricean implicature and any other forms of analysis you think are relevant. If a maxim is broken, you will need to work out whether a violation or a flout is involved, and at what discourse level (character-character or author-audience/reader). Then if a flout is involved at some level you will need to indicate what you think the implicature is in context. 1. WIN: Now, Louise, hello. I have your details here. You've been very loyal to the one job I see.
2. LOUISE: 3. WIN: 4. LOUISE:
Yes I have. Twenty years is a long time in one place. I feel it is. I feel it's time to move on.
Task B - Our answer

1. WIN: Now, Louise, hello. I have your details here. You've been very loyal to the one job I see. After her introductory remarks, in the first two sentences (which indicate that she is referring to some sheets Louise has already filled in with her relevant personal and employment details) Win flouts the maxim of manner in sentence 3 by accentuating the positive ('very loyal') in referring to the fact that Louise has been in the same job for a long time (she could have said more neutrally 'I see you've been in the same job for 20 years', for example, or more negatively 'You've been stuck in the same job for a long time.'). This implicates that she wants Louise to expand on the positive reasons which explain why she has not moved.
2. LOUISE: Yes I have Louise breaks the maxim of quantity by not giving the information requested by the previous implicature. It is difficult to know whether this is a flout or a violation. She could be implicating to Win (via a flout) that she does not want to expand on the topic or she could just be trying to avoid it (via a violation). The fact that we are at the beginning of the interaction means that it is more difficult (because we have less contextual information than later on in the conversation) to interpret conversational behaviour with precision. Whether Louise's response is a violation or a flout at the character-character level, it is clear that the audience/reader is meant to infer that she is avoiding Win's implicated request.
3. WIN: Twenty years is a long time in one place Win clearly flouts the maxim of quantity here - 20 years in one place is a long time for anyone, and she possibly flouts relation and manner too. The implicature is a suggested criticism of Louise and again invites Louise to expand on the reasons for her staying so long in the same job.
4. LOUISE: I feel it is. I feel it's time to move on As with turn 2, although Louise agrees with Win, she breaks the maxim of quantity by not taking up the invitation to expand on why she has stayed in one job for so long and why she now wants to
move. It is still difficult to know whether she flouts the quantity maxim or violates it, and this ambiguity appears to be leading to two alternative ways for an actor to play Louise at the beginning of the scene - as someone who is trying to avoid the issues Win is raising (violating the maxims covertly) or as someone who is being deliberately obstructive (flouting the maxims).
Task C - Turns 5 - 8
Now let's apply the same mode of analysis to turns 5-8. Note: you can find a link the text using under 'useful links' section of the menu on the left Look carefully at these turns, a turn at a time, in terms of Gricean implicature and any other forms of analysis you think are relevant. If a maxim is broken, you will need to work out whether a violation or a flout is involved, and at what discourse level (character-character or author-audience/reader). Then if a flout is involved at some level you will need to indicate what you think the implicature is in context. 5. WIN: 6. LOUISE: 7. WIN: 8. LOUISE: And you are what age now? I'm in my early forties. Exactly? Forty-six.
Task C - Our answer

5. WIN: And you are what age now? Gricean implicature applies most straightforwardly to statements, but we can use it in relation to Win's question. Win flouts the maxim of quantity in that she is asking a question to which she clearly already knows the answer (Louise's details must have included her date of birth). The structure of this question is also rather unusual, beginning with the Subject-Predicator ordering we would normally associate with statements, not questions (compare the more normal 'And what age are you now?'), but also containing a 'wh-' question adverb. This statement/question structuring can be related via Grice's maxim of manner, to the fact that Win does indeed already know how old Louise is from her form.
6. LOUISE: I'm in my early forties.
Louise's response clearly breaks the maxims of manner and quantity by not being precise enough, especially as she must know that Win knows her age from the form. This behaviour seems more likely to be a violation than a flout (it is not at all clear what the implicature could be if she was flouting the maxims), indicating Louise's discomfort at having to talk about personal matters.
7. WIN: Exactly? Win's re-asking of the question in a more specific way clearly re-flouts the quantity maxim for the reasons already mentioned in the discussion of turn 6. Win is clearly putting the pressure on Louise.
8. LOUISE: Forty-six. No maxims broken this time. Louise finally gives in. What should have been a socially cooperative verbal exchange (Win is trying to help Louise, after all) has turned out to very uncooperative. Win has had to fight for the information, but she has finally won, and so can now move on to explore other issues.
Task D - Turns 22 - 25
Note: you can find a link the text using under 'useful links' section of the menu on the left In turn-taking terms, in turns 1-8 we have seen Louise trying to avoid answering Win's questions in spite of the fact that Win needs the answers if she is to help Louise. This kind of pattern is repeated through the extract, foregrounding Louise's discomfort in an activity she must herself have initiated by coming to the agency, and Win's increasing directness in trying to find out why Louise wants to move. Louise is clearly very unhappy in her job, but is refusing to say why. Now let's look at the end of the extract. Win has managed to get Louise to say that part of the reason she wants to move is for more money, but it is clear that there are other reasons too. So at the end of turn 21, Win asks 'Have you any dependents?' What happens in Gricean terms from then on? 22. LOUISE: 23. WIN: 24. LOUISE: 25. WIN: No, no dependants. My mother died. So why are you making a change? Other people make changes. But why are you, now, after spending most of your life in one place?
Task D - Our answer

22. LOUISE: No, no dependants. My mother died. For the first time Louise answers a question straightforwardly and cooperatively. The fact that her conversational behaviour has changed in this turn is an internal deviation (and so foregrounded) and can be interpreted at the author-audience/reader level as indicating that either this topic is not threatening to her or she is feeling a bit more at ease in general terms.
23. WIN: So why are you making a change? Win now re-asks the question she has been asking from turn 1 onwards, but in a much more explicit manner.
24. LOUISE: Other people make changes. Louise's response clearly breaks the maxim of relation. There is still an issue about whether the break is a flout or a violation at the character-character level. At the upper discoursal level Caryl Churchill is implicating to her audience that Louise has reverted to the socially uncooperative conversational behaviour we have seen before, and which clearly cannot serve her best interests.
25. WIN: But why are you, now, after spending most of your life in one place? In the last turn of the extract Win re-asks her previous question in more exact terms, echoing what we saw in the discussion of Louise's age in turns 5-8. This flout of the quantity maxim implicates her determination to get top the bottom of whatever the problem is. Immediately after this turn, where Win is extra-explicit and extra-precise, the conversational dam breaks and in a series of long turns Louise tells Win that she has worked long, hard and effectively in her job but has seen a series of rather untalented young men promoted over her. It is this extreme dissatisfaction with her work situation that has led a very loyal employee to want to move. Note how much less effective this information would have been if Louise had answered Win's initial questions straightforwardly at the beginning of the conversation. Coming after the defensive and uneasy behaviour we have seen, Louise's explanation is bound to feel more foregrounded and more emotional, investing the scene with considerably more drama than if the answers to Win's
questions had been given without demur. Louise'sconversational behaviour has indicated how upset and angry she is about how she has been mistreated in her job, in ways that appear to be sexist, as well as unfair.
Conversational implicature and The Dumb Waiter

In this section we are going to analyse a passage taken from near the beginning of The Dumb Waiter by Harold Pinter .
We will begin by using the turn-taking style of analysis we explored in Topic 11 and then add in some Gricean analysis as a way of exploring the text.
Task A - Familiarising yourself with the text Task B - Turn-taking analysis Task C - Gricean analysis of turns 3-15 Task D - Gricean analysis of turns 18-19
Task A - Familiarising yourself with the text

Read the passage below carefully, including the contextualisation. When you are happy with your understanding of the text, jot down your impressions about the two characters and their relationship and compare your thoughts with ours.
The Dumb Waiter

[Context: At the beginning of The Dumb Waiter, the two characters, Ben and Gus, have recently arrived in Birmingham and are in the main room of a bed-sit flat with two beds in it, and a kitchen offstage. It has become clear that they are professional killers, are waiting to receive instructions on who they are to kill from someone whose identity they do not know. Just before this part of the conversation, an envelope containing a small book of matches has been pushed under the door. Throughout the play they continue to receive objects and instructions in this anonymous way, sometimes via a small service lift (the dumb waiter which provides the title for the play). Earlier, Ben has told Gus to go to the kitchen and make some tea. But Gus has not yet done so because his attention keeps wandering to other, rather trivial, topics, about which Ben has corrected his views and memories on a number of occasions. The arrival of the matches prompts Ben to reissue his order to Gus to make the tea.]
Gus probes his ear with a match. 1. BEN 2. GUS 3. BEN 4. GUS 5. BEN 6. GUS 7. BEN 8. GUS 9. BEN 10. GUS 11. BEN 12. GUS 13. BEN 14. GUS 15. BEN 16. GUS 17. BEN 18. GUS 19. BEN (slapping his hand) Don't waste them! Go on, go and light it. Eh? Go and light it. Light what? The kettle. You mean the gas. Who does? You do. (his eyes narrowing) What do you mean, I mean the gas? Well, that's what you mean, don't you? The gas. (powerfully) If I say go and light the kettle I mean go and light the kettle. How can you light a kettle? It's a figure of speech! Light the kettle. It's a figure of speech! I've never heard it. Light the kettle! It's common usage! I think you've got it wrong. (menacing) What do you mean? They put on the kettle. (taut) Who says? They stare at each other, breathing hard. (deliberately) I have never in all my life heard anyone say put on the kettle. 20. GUS 21. BEN 22. GUS 23. BEN I bet my mother used to say it. Your mother? When did you last see your mother? I don't know, about Well, what are you talking about your mother for? They stare. Gus, I'm not trying to be unreasonable. I'm just trying to point out something to you. 24. GUS 25. BEN 26. GUS 27. BEN 28. GUS Yes, but Who's the senior partner here, me or you? You. I'm only looking after your interests, Gus. You've got to learn, mate. Yes, but I've never heard -
29. BEN 30. GUS 31. BEN
(vehemently) Nobody says light the gas! What does the gas light? What does the gas -? (grabbing him with two hands by the throat, at arm's length) THE KETTLE, YOU FOOL! Gus takes the hands from his throat.
32. GUS
All right, all right. Pause
33. BEN 34. GUS 35. BEN 36. GUS
Well, what are you waiting for? I want to see if they light. What? The matches. He takes out the flattened box and tries to strike. No. He throws the box under the bed. Ben stares at him. Gus raises his foot. Shall I try it on here? Ben stares. Gus strikes a match on his shoe. It lights. Here we are.
37. BEN
(wearily) Put on the bloody kettle, for Christ's sake. Ben goes to his bed, but, realising what he has said, stops and half turns. They look at each other. Gus slowly exits, left. Our answer
Task A - Our answer

The two hit men are clearly not equal in status. Ben appears to be the leader and Gus the junior partner. But Gus, although he doesn't seem to be amazingly bright, appears to have views of his own and challenges Ben on a number of occasions over rather trivial things to do with linguistic propriety. Ben thinks of himself as the natural leader and seems to view Gus as second rate and a linguistic pedant with ideas 'above his station'. But Gus seems eventually to come out on top over
the linguistic argument they have here, even though Ben's view is not at all unreasonable. The little battle for power over correct linguistic usage that we witness between the two men is very trivial and clearly has a humorous side which seems rather absurd in the context of two paid assassins waiting to be told who they are to murder next. We will use turn-taking analysis and Gricean analysis to test these interpretative remarks and add more analytical detail to them.
Task B - Turn-taking analysis

Note: You can find a link to the passage under 'Useful Links' on the left hand menu. Analyse the text in the following ways and compare your analysis, and how it relates to our general interpretative remarks with our analysis: (1) Turn-length and overall distribution of word-counts for each character (2) Interruptions - who interrupts who? (3) Topic control - who controls the topic? (4) Terms of address - what terms of address do they use for each other? (5) Any other turn-taking features you feel are relevant. What does your analysis reveal to you about the interaction between the two characters and how does this contribute to their characterisation and your understanding of their relationship?
Task B - Our answers

(1) Turn length In the table below, we have counted the words using the count facility within 'Word', which counts words as orthographic units (for example it counts 'don't' as one word). You may have used a slightly different method of calculation, but if you use the same method for both characters the proportions are unlikely to be very different. Turns Ben Gus Words Average
19 18
162 87
8.53 4.83
Ben has roughly twice the number of words per turn as Gus, reflecting his power.
(2) Interruptions Ben interrupts Gus four times (22/23, 24/25, 28/29, 30/31) and Gus never interrupts Ben. This confirms Ben's power in the conversation and is also a measure of how impassioned he becomes about the rather trivial topic that dominates the conversation, whereas Gus 'keeps his cool' much better. (3) Topic control Ben begins the first topic with his instruction to Gus, but Gus then introduces the topic in relation to a particular linguistic propriety, and the general topic of linguistic propriety then dominates the conversation as they argue about it. And although Ben argues his linguistic views with some passion and later attempts to regain control by getting Gus to make the tea (see turns 33 and 37), in general terms Gus has controlled the topic most of the time (cf. 20-23, where Gus introduces the sub-topic of what his mother used to say). So this turn-taking feature pushes somewhat in the opposite direction when compared with the first two. (4) Terms of address Ben Gus 'Gus' (23, 27), 'mate' (27), 'YOU FOOL!' (31) None
Given that there are only two people in the conversation and they apparently know one another well, Gus's use of no address terms at all is normal. Consequently, Ben's use of 'Gus' and 'mate' seems rather condescending in context. They are all used when Ben is telling Gus that he is helping him, even though this does not really seem to be the case - he seems mainly to be trying to assert his more powerful status in their relationship. 'YOU FOOL!' is dramatically different, of course, indicating with its content and its graphology (the capitalisation and the exclamation mark) that Ben, the person who sees himself as in control, loses that control, and his temper, and shouts angrily at Gus. Overall, then, the evidence of the terms of address that are used patterns with the topic control data, in opposition to the turn size and interruption data. (5) Other turn-taking features Gus clearly tries to control Ben through his use of commands (he uses 6 commands, whereas Gus uses none). He also uses 9 questions, while Gus has only one. This suggests that he is trying hard to take up the role of initiator in the conversational changes. But a number of the questions are actually responses to something Gus has previously said, and Gus also initiates some of the conversational exchanges. So although Ben seems to be trying to exert control in these ways, he is not always successful.
There are three occasions when normal turn-taking behaviour breaks down and there is a fairly long silence (usually silence is avoided, where possible, in conversation). These silences are indicated by the stage directions indicating that the characters stare at one another in the middle of Ben's turns 19 and 23, and 'They look at each other. Gus slowly exits, left.' at the end of the extract. The fact that turn-taking breaks down is indicative of the unease between the two characters, and the fact that they stare at one another also indicates hostile kinesic behaviour, which would need to be accompanied in performance by appropriate facial expression and body posture. The fact that the staring takes place in the middle of Ben's turns suggests that the conversation is more disrupting for him than Gus, and in general terms a number of the other stage directions indicate Ben's discomfort and unhappiness. Indeed, apart from the stage directions in turn 36 concerning Gus's activities with the matchbox, all the other stage directions concern Ben and make his emotional involvement (mainly his anger) very clear. Overall, then, although it appears that Ben is in some sense the dominant partner, the turn-taking data suggests that Gus is challenging that dominance and annoying Ben. But the challenge is over something rather trivial, the meaning of idiomatic expressions in relation to the homely activity of tea making, which contrasts dramatically with the larger situation, namely that Ben and Gus are assassins, waiting to be given the identity of their next 'hit'.
Task C - Gricean analysis of turns 3-15

Try to characterise what is going on in Gricean terms in turns 3-15. How do their different assumptions create the argument between them? 3. BEN 4. GUS 5. BEN 6. GUS 7. BEN 8. GUS 9. BEN 10. GUS 11. BEN 12. GUS 13. BEN 14. GUS 15. BEN Go and light it. Light what? The kettle. You mean the gas. Who does? You do. (his eyes narrowing) What do you mean, I mean the gas? Well, that's what you mean, don't you? The gas. (powerfully) If I say go and light the kettle I mean go and light the kettle. How can you light a kettle? It's a figure of speech! Light the kettle. It's a figure of speech! I've never heard it. Light the kettle! It's common usage!
Task C - Our answer

When Ben tells Gus in turn 3 to 'Go and light it' he is being conversationally efficient in his adherence to the maxim if quantity. His use of the pronoun 'it' is perfectly clear in context, and Gus should be able to interpret Ben's conversational intent without difficulty. So when Gus asks, via an echo question, for the reference of 'it' to be specified, it would appear that he is being uncooperative and obstructive. When Ben says 'light the kettle' in turn 5 he is using a common idiomatic expression at the time (1960) the play was first performed (in this era the use of electric kettles was not common in Britain and most people heated the water to make tea on gas stoves). 'Light the kettle' is elliptical ('light [the gas under] the kettle') and Ben's understanding of this fact is made clear a little later, in turns 13 and 15, when he refers to 'light the kettle' as a 'figure of speech' and 'common usage'. So when Gus says 'you mean the gas' in turn 6, he is flouting the maxim of quantity by telling Ben something he clearly already knows. Effectively he spells out what Grice calls a CONVENTIONAL IMPLICATURE. Gus's conversational behaviour indicates that he is being obstructive and challenging (though it is not at all clear why - Perhaps because he is not very bright? Perhaps because he just wants to be awkward?). When Ben says 'If I say go and light the kettle I mean go and light the kettle' in turn 11 he flouts the maxim of quality, as it is clear that if he says 'light the kettle' he does not mean 'light the kettle' but 'light [the gas under] the kettle', and this implicates that Ben wants Gus to do as he is told (and so act in line with Ben's assumptions about his status in relation to Gus). However, when Gus asks 'How can you light a kettle?' in turn 12 he is abiding over-demonstrably by the maxim of quality. You can't literally light a kettle because it is made of material which is not combustible under normal circumstances, but it is difficult to believe that Gus is not aware of the conventional implicature which Ben used in turn 5 (this is why what Gus says seems pedantic). Gus's pedantry opposes the characterisation Ben has just produced, thus indicating his conversational challenge. It is just about possible that Gus is not aware of the idiomatic expression he is challenging, and so is not actually violating the Gricean maxims. But this seems difficult to believe. Ben flouts the maxim if quantity in turn 13, by repeating 'It's a figure of speech!', implicating his exasperation at Gus's behaviour, but Gus denies this in 14, violating the quality maxim. The fact that Ben then breaks the quantity maxim in 15 by repeating the contentious expression and his 'figure of speech' characterisation of it, if in different words, reinforces his exasperation, and it is clear that at the author-audience level, Pinter is implicating that the two assassins are completely, and ludicrously, at odds with one another over this trivial issue of phrasing.
Task D - Gricean analysis of turns 18-19

How would you characterise these two turns in Gricean terms and what is their interpretative significance? 18. GUS 19. BEN They put on the kettle. (taut) Who says? They stare at each other, breathing hard. (deliberately) I have never in all my life heard anyone say put on the kettle.
Task D - Our answer

In turn 18 Gus clearly produces another common idiomatic expression used to refer to the activity under discussion (tea making). Like Ben's 'light the kettle, this expression is elliptical (cf. 'put the kettle on the stove' which is itself elliptical for 'put the kettle on the lighted gas ring on the stove'), and although Gus does not violate a Gricean maxim, his alternative formulation can be interpreted, via the maxim of relation, as a challenge to Ben's formulation. Certainly, Gus's reaction suggests that he interprets Ben's remark as a challenge. When Ben asks 'Who says?', although he uses a question he clearly flouts the quality and quantity maxims, as Gus has clearly said the phrase. This implicates, via the maxim of relation, that he is himself challenging Gus's challenge, by asking for an indication of who, other than Gus, says what he says. It would appear that, rather unreasonably, he is asking Gus to refer to some linguistic authority who shares his views. Gus cannot provide such an academic reference, of course, which is presumably why he opts out, and does not reply. Ben then appears to violate the quality maxim when he says that he has never heard anyone say 'put on the kettle'. Gus's alternative expression is also very common usage and it is very difficult to believe he has never heard it, so at the authoraudience level it would appear that Pinter is implicating that Ben is lying in order to preserve his authority. If we add the evidence of this Gricean analysis to the previous analyses, it would appear that the argument between the two characters has more to do with status than it does to do with whether particular idiomatic expressions are commonly used or not, something which is made clear in the last turn (37) of the extract under discussion, when Ben himself uses the 'put on the kettle' expression, giving Gus a pyrrhic linguistic victory, as he finally goes offstage to make the tea. Clearly we will be looking in the rest of the play to see some sort of resolution to this underlying antagonism between the two characters, as well as finding out who the assassins' next 'hit' is (actually the play ends, frozen dramatically, at a point when it is clear that one of the men has just been instructed to kill the other).
The other thing which is worth noting is that Pinter is often praised by drama critics for having 'an ear for conversation', and it is interesting in this respect to note that the antagonism between the two characters is expressed, rather ludicrously, through an argument about two equivalent idiomatic expressions for the same activity, both of which are clearly elliptical in form. Pinter is thus making us focus on ordinary linguistic expression in a way that no playwright before him had done. There is a general issue about how realistic dramatic dialogue is, and if you want to follow up on it, this matter is discussed in: Mick Short (1996) Exploring the Language of Poems, Plays and Prose, Chapter 6. This discussion includes an examination (pp. 181-4) of another passage from The Dumb Waiter.
What will we learn in Session B?

In this session we will continue to explore the 'meaning between the lines', or what the famous 20th century Russian director Stanislawski called the 'sub-text' of plays. This time we will explore Politeness Theory. Politeness (and also impoliteness) is something which is often not made explicit, but, like conversational implicature, can be inferred in conversational exchanges. We will discover that politeness in conversation is an important part of the 'social glue' which binds us together, and that we have two main ways of being polite to one another: 1. Demonstrating a positive attitude to someone or something associated with them (e.g. by praising them). This is usually called positive politeness. E.g. 'That's a wonderful new coat you've got!', 'I thought your performance was great.', 'Your cat's really cute.' 2. Helping others to achieve their goals (including making a point of not getting in the way of what they want to achieve). This is usually called negative politeness. E.g. holding a door open to let someone through before you, showing someone how to use a computer
programme they are not familiar with, helping someone to pick up the things they have just dropped. Looking at patterns of politeness and impoliteness in dramatic (and novelistic) conversations can help us to understand the relations between the characters who are interacting with one another.
Politeness and impoliteness

Task A - Why are we polite to one another? Task B - An extreme example Task C - Getting some of the terminology straight Task D - Scales of politeness / impoliteness Task E Politeness Theory politeness / impoliteness and social (ordinary language) politeness / impoliteness Task F Getting a few more terms straight
Task A - Why are we polite to one another?

Politeness is the term linguists use to refer to a whole range of linguistic and non-linguistic strategies that display to the hearer that the speaker (a) has a positive opinion of the hearer and (b) does not want to impose on him/her. Examples of (a) are usually termed positive politeness (you say positive things about someone else) and examples of (b) are usually called negative politeness (you try not to get in the way of others and perhaps even try to help them). Politeness appears to be a universal phenomenon found in all cultures, although its manifestations and extent vary to some degree from one culture to another. The British are often thought to be very concerned with politeness, but it is arguably an even larger factor in Chinese and Japanese communities, for example. In Britain, if you praise one of my children you enhance my positive face. In China you could also achieve a similar, if weaker effect, by praising my nephew or niece, but in Britain such an effect would usually be very slight indeed. Sitting so that the soles of your feet are visible is rude in some cultures, but not others. The fact that politeness is universal raises an obvious question. Why are human beings polite to one another? Discuss this question with your partner and then compare our answer with yours.
Task A - Our answer

Human beings are social animals, and so to achieve almost all of our goals we have to cooperate with one another. Having other people feel well disposed towards us is thus likely to be helpful to us as we try to achieve our own goals. Let us take a trivial example to illustrate this point. Imagine that you have just arrived at Lancaster railway station and want to find the way to the university. You see a young woman with a pushchair, and so you decide to ask her. In theory you could say
How do I get to Lancaster University?. But if you say that, in spite of the fact that you have indicated what information you need efficiently, the woman is likely to think of you as being rather abrupt, if not rude, and this is could well decrease her wish to help you. After all, she has her own goals to achieve (e.g. getting her small child home before it starts to rain) and you are getting in the way (i.e. you are being negatively impolite, or imposing on her negative face). However if you say Excuse me, but Im new to Lancaster am a bit lost. Could you possibly tell me how to get to Lancaster University? you are much more likely to receive a positive answer. This is because you are mitigating your negative impoliteness (getting in her way) by using various linguistic politeness strategies. Excuse me is a conventional politeness expression. Telling her you are new to Lancaster helps to indicate that you really do need assistance. And finally, when you ask the question you have been more linguistically indirect through your use of could you (indirectness is more polite than directness) and also suggested through your hedging use of possibly that the size of the task you are asking of her is rather larger than it actually is (thus enhancing her positive face if she is able to tell you the way). You could have sugared the pill even more by indulging in a bit of positively polite behaviour before making your request - for example by saying What a pretty little girl you have! and something asking about her before making the above request. Mothers of small children usually view them as being part of their social deictic centre (we looked at social deixis in Topic 8), and so they are usually flattered if you show interest in them and/or praise them. We can see from this example that politeness is a necessary strategy for us to use if we are to achieve social and other goals. This is why it is a universal human phenomenon.
Task B - An extreme example

The most extreme use of politeness to mitigate negative face we know of comes from a promise in the lyrics of Act 1 of the comic opera Princess Ida, where it is clearly being used for an additional humorous effect. King Hildebrand tells King Gama and his sons that: We will hang you, never fear, Most politely, most politely, most politely. (W. S. Gilbert, Princess Ida I) In what ways is this utterance polite and impolite, and what makes it humorous? When you have discussed the quotation, compare your account with ours.
Task B - Our answer

Executing someone is as about as negatively impolite as you can get (unless the person involved is an extreme masochist!). You clearly interfere dramatically with their goals. This apparent
promise is thus a threat heavily disguised as a promise, which is where the humour comes from. The expression never fear is usually used when you are promising to do something the other person wants to happen and is worried about it (e.g. Ill look after the cat while you are away, never fear). This is what makes the large imposition on the victims negative face in the first line of the Princess Ida quotation look humorously like an attempt at enhancing his negative positive face. The second line, Most politely, most politely appears to assume that the promise to execute the victim is indeed a negative face threat, and the repeated indication that the threat will be carried out most politely looks like an attempt to enhance the victims positive face (to give him due deference even in the act of killing him). Notice how much more interesting (fun?!) it is to hear the lines W. S. Gilbert wrote rather than the direct, unvarnished expression We will hang you. Directness is a bit crude and boring conversationally, and is rarely used, except in very extreme situations.
Task C - Getting some of the terminology straight

We have used some new terminology in the first couple of tasks without explaining it fully. Lets see if you have got it straight. Discuss with your partner what we mean by each of the following expressions and then check your understanding with our account by clicking on the relevant expression.
Positive politeness Positive face Enhancing someones face Linguistic mitigation
Negative politeness Negative face Threatening someones face Linguistic indirectness
Task C - Positive politeness

Positive politeness involves satisfying someone elses wish to be approved of. You do this mainly by saying nice things about them, or things associated with them (e.g. Youre so clever!, What a lovely dress!, Your mums really kind, Your cats a real cutey)
Task C - Negative politeness

Negative politeness involves not impeding someones wish to get on with achieving his or her own goals. You can do this by not getting in their way or actually helping them to achieve their goal in some way (e.g. stopping to let someone pass, being quiet when someone else is working, helping someone to cook a meal, volunteering to baby-sit for free while a childs parents go to a film they want to see).
Task C - Positive face

We all have a wish to be liked and approved of by others. This wish is our positive face
Task C - Negative face

We all have goals we want to achieve (e.g. doing well on your course). This wish to achieve our goals unimpeded is our negative face.
Task C - Enhancing someones face

We enhance someones positive face by saying nice things about that person, or things closely associated with him/her. We enhance someones negative face by helping him or her to achieve their goals unimpeded
Task C - Threatening someones face

We threaten someones positive face by saying critical or unpleasant things about that person, or things closely associated with him/her (e.g. You plonker!, What a stupid question!). Threatening someones positive face is usually impolite socially (but not always), and will often need to be mitigated if social harmony is to be preserved. We threaten someones negative face by impeding their attempt to achieve their goals (e.g. being late for a meeting, destroying someones essay notes, using someone elses food/drink/clothes et c without asking for permission). Threatening someones negative face is often impolite socially (but not always), and will often need to be mitigated or atoned for (e.g. by apologising, explaining and buying a replacement) if social harmony is to be preserved.
Task C - Linguistic mitigation

Linguistic mitigation is the strategy of trying to repair linguistically the damage done to someones face by what you say or do. If you say Youre a plonker, but so am I you have reduced the threat to the other persons positive face by suggesting in the second clause that you are both equally silly. If you say I wonder if you could give me a bit of help instead of Help me!, you have mitigated the threat to the other persons negative faced by (i) making the amount of help needed seem small by using the hedging expression a bit, (ii) being more indirect linguistically, (iii) using a declarative structure rather than an imperative and (iv) framing the request as if it were hypothetical (cf. I wonder if and the modal verb could).
Task C - Linguistic indirectness

Linguistic indirectness usually involves using more complex grammatical structures and more vague, abstract or indirect lexis. It is a major way in which we mitigate impoliteness linguistically.
Task E Politeness Theory politeness / impoliteness and social (ordinary language) politeness / impoliteness
It is important to bear in mind that the way in which the terms polite, impolite etc are used in Politeness Theory is not exactly the same as their use in ordinary language. In other words, in Politeness Theory they are being used as technical terms. So if we are not careful we can be caught out by running together the technical and ordinary language uses. In ordinary language, when we talk of someone being polite or impolite we are referring to the overall social effect of the linguistic and non-linguistic behaviour involved. But in politeness theory the notions of politeness and impoliteness are being applied to detailed factors one at a time. It is only when all the factors are seen together, and in some particular context, that the social or ordinary language meaning of politeness comes into play. Let us look at a few examples to help distinguish the ordinary language (social) and Politeness Theory notions of politeness and impoliteness from one another. For each of the examples below, work out whether you think (a) social and (b) Politeness Theory politeness and/or impoliteness are involved, and compare your observations with ours. 1. Imagine that you are in a lecture and someone says: We are getting a bit hot in here. Could we have the window open? Is this request impolite?
Task F Getting a few more terms straight

We have used a few more technical terms as we have gone through tasks D and E, so lets make sure we have got them straight. How do you understand the following terms? Compare your answers with ours. Face-threatening Act (FTA) Bald FTA On record FTA Off record FTA
Task F Our answers

Face-threatening Act (FTA) A Face-threatening Act (FTA) is an act (linguistic or non-linguistic) that threatens someones positive or negative face. It may be bald or mitigated, and it may be on record or off record. Bald An FTA is bald if it is not accompanied by any mitigation. On record An FTA is on record if it makes clear linguistically or contextually who it is aimed at. For example, Get up John is a bald on-record FTA and Please could you get up, John is also an on-record FTA, but which is mitigated. Off record This one is a bit of a cheat on our part, as we havent actually used the term in the previous tasks. But you may well come across it in your reading, and it is not too difficult to understand, as it is clearly contrasted with on record. If on-record FTAs make explicit who they are directed at, it follows that off record ones do not (and so are not as impolite). Compare Youve farted (bald on record) with Theres an odd smell in here or even There must be something wrong with the drains again.
Top Girls revisited - with politeness in mind

Now that we have looked Politeness Theory in general terms, we will begin to apply it to drama. On this page we are going to re-visit the extract from Caryl Churchills Top Girls that we looked at in terms of Gricean conversational implicature in session A. You may find it helpful to revisit the Gricean discussion quickly, so that you are freshly aware of it when thinking about the text in terms of politeness. We wont analyse every turn as it will take too long. Instead we will look at particularly significant or interesting parts in terms of politeness theory. First of all, though we will look at the way in which our intuitive knowledge of politeness contributes to our understanding of the passage overall.
Task A Reminding yourself of the extract Task B - Turn 1 Task C - Turns 5 - 9 Task D - Turn 11
Task E - Turn 15 Task F - Turn 17
Task A Reminding yourself of the extract

Note: you can find a link the text using under 'useful links' section of the menu on the left Re-read the extract and/or re-watch the video-clip to remind yourself of it. As you do so, jot down anything you notice in general terms about how politeness and/or impoliteness contributes to your understanding of the passage and the effects it has on you. What is Wins goal in the interview, and what consequences would you expect her pursuit of her goal to have in terms of politeness?
View 'Top Girls' video clip [Context: Win works as an adviser at the Top Girls employment agency, helping people find employment. Louise has come to the agency for help, and this is the first meeting between the two women.] 1. WIN: 2. LOUISE: 3. WIN: 4. LOUISE: 5. WIN: 6. LOUISE: 7. WIN: 8. LOUISE: 9. WIN: 10. LOUISE: 11. WIN: 12. LOUISE: 13. WIN: 14. LOUISE: 15. WIN: Now, Louise, hello. I have your details here. You've been very loyal to the one job I see. Yes I have. Twenty years is a long time in one place. I feel it is. I feel it's time to move on. And you are what age now? I'm in my early forties. Exactly? Forty-six. It's not necessarily a handicap. Well it is of course, we have to face that. But it's not necessarily a disabling handicap. Experience does count for something. I hope so. Now between ourselves is there any trouble, any reason why you're leaving that wouldn't appear on the form? Nothing like that. Like what? Nothing at all. No long term understandings come to a sudden end, making for an insupportable
atmosphere? 16. LOUISE: 17. WIN: 18. LOUISE: 19. WIN: I've always completely avoided anything like that at all. No personality clashes with your immediate superiors or inferiors? I've always taken care to get on very well with everyone. I only ask because it can affect the reference and it also affects your motivation. I want to be quite clear why you're moving on. So I take it the job itself no longer satisfies you. Is it the money? 20. LOUISE: 21. WIN: 22. LOUISE: 23. WIN: 24. LOUISE: 25. WIN: It's partly the money. It's not so much the money. Nine thousand is very respectable. Have you dependants? No, no dependants. My mother died. So why are you making a change? Other people make changes. But why are you, now, after spending most of your life in one place? (Top Girls, by Caryl Churchill, Act 2, Scene 3 - an interview at the employment agency)
Task A Our answers

Wins goal is to find out in detail about Louise and her experience in order to help her in her quest for a new job. This goal, although it should have longer-term benefits for Louise, also involves short-term threats to her face, as she has to tell Win things she does not want to. As we have just described it, this threat constitutes a threat to Louises negative face. But some of the things she may not want to disclose appear to be because they throw an unflattering light on her, in which case her positive face is being threatened too. If Win is to be successful in helping Louise we would expect her have to use linguistic politeness to mitigate the threats to Louises negative and/or positive face.
Task B Turn 1
What politeness strategy does Win use in turn 1 (reproduced here for your convenience)? 1. WIN: Now, Louise, hello. I have your details here. You've been very loyal to the one job I see.
Task B Our answer

Wins opening move in the interview is to go for a positive politeness strategy. She clearly enhances Louises positive face when she says youve been very loyal to the one job. The fact that she calls Louise by her first name (and not title + last name) also enhances Louises positive face, suggesting to Louise that Win is well-disposed towards her, even though they have only just met. From our perspective, looking in on the conversation from the Author-Audience discourse level, she appears to be buttering Louise up a bit at the beginning of the conversation in order to improve her chances of conducting a friendly and productive interview. Note that from her polite behaviour we will also begin to think of Louise as being a good-natured person. As the English writer and clergyman Sidney Smith (1771-1845) said, politeness is good nature regulated by common sense. So politeness also has effects in terms of inferring characterisation.
Task C Turns 5-9

How can politeness analysis be applied to these turns to help explain what is going on between the lines? 5. WIN: 6. LOUISE: 7. WIN: 8. LOUISE: 9. WIN: And you are what age now? I'm in my early forties. Exactly? Forty-six. It's not necessarily a handicap. Well it is of course, we have to face that. But it's not necessarily a disabling handicap. Experience does count for something.
Task C Our answer

When Win asks her how old she is, she threatens Louises positive and negative faces at the same time. It is clear from her reaction that Louise does not want to give the answer, and this is likely to be because middle-aged women do not like to be specific about their age. Hence in turn 6 we can infer that she breaks the Gricean maxims of manner and quantity in an attempt to preserve her positive face. Given that Win already has her details (turn 1) it will be clear to the audience/reader that this avoidance strategy will fail (as indeed it does in the next pair of turns). From Wins point of view, it seems that she was merely confirming information she already had in order to get the conversation off to a smooth start, and so probably did not realise that she was attacking Louises face in any way. Evidence for this is that she does not use mitigation strategies in turns 5 and 7.
Wins politeness behaviour changes in turn 9, because it is now clear to her that Louise was unhappy about revealing her age. She tries to repair the damage by being positively polite, saying that Louises age is not a handicap and that her experience is an advantage: Its not necessarily a handicap. Well it is of course, we have to face that. But its not necessarily a disabling handicap. Experience does count for something. However, Win clearly feels the need to abide by Grices quality maxim (dont say what you know to be false), and so ends up hedging her negative constructions with not necessarily. Win has effectively stepped, unknowing, into a bit of a conversational minefield, and as a consequence is having some difficulty. From this set of turns we are also likely to hypothesise about Louises character. Her behaviour so far has rather been hyper-sensitive. So she may well have a brittle personality.
Task D Turn 11
How does Win try to reduce the negative face threat in her question in this turn? 11. WIN: Now between ourselves is there any trouble, any reason why you're leaving that wouldn't appear on the form?
Task D Our answer

This question is clearly a bit sensitive. Win is effectively trying to find out the reason for Louise wanting to change jobs, and as personal issues might be involved, the chances of there being some threat to Louises face (positive and negative) is quite high. And she has already accidentally stepped on Louises toes, of course. As a consequence Win involves uses a number of linguistic mitigation strategies in this turn. Between our selves is an attempt to lower the threat by indicating that Louises answer will remain confidential between the two women. Any trouble, any reason involves a reformulation, the reformulation being vaguer than the first attempt. Wins reference here is in the form of a Noun Phrase, and this helpfully does not have to suggest who caused the trouble. Finally reason . . . that wouldnt appear on the form downtones the extent of the trouble by suggesting that Louise has not declared the issue for reasons of bureaucratic propriety. Win is clearly minding her ps and qs at this point in the conversation
Task E Turn 15
How does Win try to reduce the negative face threat in her question in this turn? 15. WIN: No long term understandings come to a sudden end, making
for an insupportable atmosphere? Our answer
Task E Our answer

Wins mitigation strategy here is similar to that she used in turn 11. The NP no long term understandings, although it is more specific than any trouble, any reason of turn 11 (and so is slightly more threatening), does not suggest who might have misunderstood who (though our schematic assumptions suggest that the best odds must be on Win having misunderstood a superior). The phrase is also rather vague. Similar things can be said about an insupportable atmosphere. In addition, come to a sudden end also fails to indicate who or what made the understanding come to an end. Louise is clearly sacrificing the Gricean maxim of manner in order to mitigate her positive and negative FTA. In general terms it is important to notice how the Gricean maxims and Politeness Theory constraints interact with one another here. It looks as if they will interact with one another in many other situations too, not just this conversation between Win and Louise.
Task F Turn 17
For our last exercise on the Top Girls extract, lets have a look at turn 17. What can you say about that in terms of Politeness Theory? 17. WIN: No personality clashes with your immediate superiors or inferiors? Our answer
Task F Our answer

If we compare this turn with turns 11-12 and 15-16, we can see that Win has no choice but to increase again the amount of face threat (positive and negative) to Louise. Win has tried to brooch the subject in a way that has mitigated the face threat to Louise as much possible, while still asking the relevant questions. But Louises replies in turns 12 and16 have been very uncooperative. As a consequence Win has to become even more specific, suggesting a possible example of what would count as a long term misunderstanding. However, she still mitigates the FTA as much as she can. She uses the NP tactic again, thus avoiding spelling out her guesses about who might have done what to whom. Similarly, although the coordinated NPs your immediate superiors or inferiors narrow down the possible candidates for people Louise might have been at odds with (her equals and those a long way above or below her are ruled out), they are still pretty vague.
Overall, we can see that Louise uses two main politeness strategies in this extract. At the beginning she uses positive politeness to try to put Win at her ease. Then, when she discovers that she has accidentally trodden on Louises toes she resorts to mitigation strategies to reduce the amount of face threat in her FTAs which she has no real choice but to perform if she is to do her job. Louise effectively refuses to answer the questions (something which in itself is uncooperative, and so is negatively impolite to Louise, who is only trying to help, after all). These refusals force Win to increase the amount of face threat to Louise, which she consistently tries to mitigate with two strategies: (i) use NPs rather than clauses wherever possible, to avoid the issue of agency and (ii) make the NPs as vague as you can while asking the questions that need to be asked. Looking at significant parts of this passage in politeness terms has told us quite a lot about the two characters. Louise seems to be rather brittle: defensive and uncooperative though we cant know from such a short extract whether this is a permanent character trait or something induced by the particular circumstances she has found herself in at work. Win appears to be rather good hearted, yet determined to get to the bottom of things (though again we cant yet know whether these are permanent character traits or not), and she also appears to have a particular politeness style.
Politeness and characterisation

On previous pages in this topic we have begun to understand politeness theory. On this page we are going to examine a short extract from P. G. Wodehouse's they use politeness strategies. It will be helpful to remember that there are two different kinds of politeness: Come On Jeeves, and explore
how our understanding of the two characters, and their relationship, is manifested in terms of how
POSITIVE POLITENESS: We feel the need to be praised by others and so it is polite (a) to praise
others (e.g. Youre very clever) and conversely (b) to dispraise oneself (e.g. No, Im a bit thick really).
NEGATIVE POLITENESS: We also like to go about our business in the world unimpeded. It is polite
(a) to ease the path of others and so (b) make life more difficult for ourselves in easing the path of others. Note that you can be badly behaved by doing the opposite of what the politeness principles suggest (e.g. praising yourself or making others go out of their way to ease your own path). Try it with your friends, and see the reactions you get!
Task A - Reading the passage and understanding it Task B - Interruptions Task C - Turn 2 Task D -Turns 7 - 10
Task E - Turns 20 - 26
Task A Reading the passage and understanding it

Read the extract below carefully, and try to describe the contrasting characters of the two men. What are they each trying to achieve, and how do the ways in which they are polite and/or impolite to one another relate to those goals? Do the two characters use the same style(s) of politeness and impoliteness? Who wins the conversational battle? How is the victory achieved? [The context for the passage is as follows: In Come on Jeeves, the famous character Jeeves is not the manservant of Bertie Wooster, but the Earl of Towcesters butler. The Earl is short of cash, and in order to solve the problem, he has been operating as a race course bookie under a false identity, with Jeeves as his clerk. Captain Biggar placed a bet with them on the last race of the race meeting they have just attended, and the horse he bet on won. In order to avoid paying Captain Biggar the 3000 that he is owed, Jeeves and the Earl of Towcester have absconded in their car. The Captain pursued them in his car but was stopped by the police for speeding. In this scene he suddenly enters the Earls house through an open French window and confronts Jeeves.] JEEVES flicks phone table, coffee table, etc., and empties ashtrays. A man appears in French window. This is CAPTAIN BIGGAR. He is a weather-beaten colonial, with a bronzed face, a clipped moustache and the air of being a tough customer. 1. CAPTAIN: Good evening
The voice has a familiar ring to JEEVES, but he turns with great calm and continues to dust out ashtrays and polish them with a cloth he has taken from the drawer. 2. JEEVES: Yes, sir? May I suggest that the front door is round to the right, the tradesman's entrance to the left? 3. CAPTAIN: 4. JEEVES: I've just been having a dekko at your Austin. Your allusion, I presume, is to the car of my employer, the Earl of Towcester? 5. CAPTAIN: The Earl of Towcester - ? That's true, then, is it? The police said. (He comes into the room.) 6. JEEVES (interrupting) You are possibly unaware, sir, that your entry into this room constitutes a trespass? 7. CAPTAIN: That be damned. When you're chasing crooks -
8. JEEVES: 9. CAPTAIN:
Crooks? People who take your money and don't pay what they owe are crooks. And we don't stand on ceremony with them in Kuala Lumpur.
10. JEEVES:
You appear to be under some misapprehension. If you have any business with his lordship, will you kindly state it briefly and at once?
11. CAPTAIN: My old Wolseley would have caught up with that car if the police hadn't nabbed me for speeding. I told them I was chasing a welshing bookie and his clerk and gave them the car number - (Points off in presumed direction of garage.) that car number. 12. JEEVES: Since the police presumably informed you that the car in question is the property of Lord Towcester, I find your presence here bordering on the incomprehensible. 13. CAPTAIN: Listen. You're coming it very grand, but let me tell you, my good man, that I'm used to dealing with Rajahs, Viziers and three-tailed Bashaws. 14. JEEVES: There is no question of being grand. I am, however, dressed in a little brief authority, and I shall exercise it by asking you to leave this room at once. 15. CAPTAIN: I've not finished saying my say. 16. JEEVES: I see I shall have to summon the police. (He goes to telephone, picks up receiver.) 17. CAPTAIN (beginning to crack) Wait a minute. I've not come to make any trouble for Lord Towcester. Seems someone borrowed his car today...with or without his permission... 18. JEEVES: Nobody borrowed his lordship's car. Of that I can assure you. It is a clear case of mistaken identity. (He replaces receiver, but stands with his hand on it.) 19. CAPTAIN: Don't tell me! That car was used today by a bookie called 'Honest Patch Perkins' and his clerk. 20. JEEVES: In the kindliest spirit I suggest that your eyesight needs medical attention. 21. CAPTAIN: My eyesight? My eyesight? Do you know who you're talking to? I am Sahib Biggar. 22. JEEVES: I regret to say that the name is unknown to me. However,
Sahib, I can only repeat. 23. CAPTAIN 24. JEEVES: (cutting in on 'Sahib') In this country I use my title of Captain. Sahib or Captain, I still say that you have made the pardonable mistake of misreading a licence number. 25. CAPTAIN: Look, perhaps you're not up on these things. I am a white hunter, the most famous white hunter in Malaya, Indonesia, Africa. I can stand without fear in the path of an oncoming rhino...and why? Because I know I can get him in that one vulnerable spot before he's within sixty paces. 26. JEEVES: I concede that you may have trained your eyes for that purpose, but, poorly informed as I am on the subject, I do not believe that rhinoceri are equipped with number plates.
Task A Our answer

Captain Biggar is angry because he has not been paid his winnings (3000 is still alot of money, and when the play was written it would have been worth much more), and wants to confront the men who have stolen it in order to get his money and have them arrested. But even if we discount his local anger (being stopped for speeding wont have improved his temper either), he seems to be a rather direct, straightforward and proud man. He calls a spade a spade cf. his use of the word crooks in turns 7 and 9 and he tells others that he is famous (this kind of behaviour is usually felt to be unacceptable behaviour in polite circles). Captain Biggars straightforwardness might be an advantage in other contexts, but here it suggests that he is rather unsophisticated (and not very clever?). He is fairly straightforwardly rude to Jeeves and his employer. Jeeves, on the other hand, seems much more adept (and so more clever?). He needs to confuse Captain Biggar and persuade him that he is accusing the wrong men. He deflects Captain Biggars (rude but true) accusations while also managing to be rude back, but in a more indirect, and sophisticated way. By the end of the extract Jeeves appears to be tying Captain Biggar up in knots, and this is where much of the humour comes from. In politeness terms, then, Captain Biggar is pretty impolite he is rude to Jeeves and the Earl of Towcester, and praises himself. Jeeves is certainly impolite back, but manages to achieve his rudeness in a more indirect, polite way. We clearly need to explore these differences, and how they are achieved, in more detail in the other tasks on this page.
Task B Interruptions
Note that in turn-taking terms interruptions constitute an attack on the speakers negative face, as they impede the speakers desire to continue speaking.
Look at the extract again, identifying each interruption and who interrupts who. What does the pattern you find tell you?
Task B Our answer

Jeeves interrupts the Captain three times and the Captain only interrupts him once:
TURN 6 Jeeves interrupts the Captain (cf. the incomplete structure and . . . at the end of
turn 5, and the stage direction at the beginning of 6).
TURN 8 Jeeves interrupts the Captain (cf. the incomplete structure and the dash at the
end of 7).
TURN 16 Jeeves interrupts the Captain (cf. . . . at the end of turn 15). Note that Jeeves
also interrupts the Captain when he is complaining in 15 about the fact that he had not finished what he wanted to say when Jeeves stole a turn in 14.
TURN 23 the Captain interrupts Jeeves (cf. the incomplete structure and . . . at the end
of turn 22 and the stage direction at the beginning of 23). It would appear that as Jeeves interrupts the Captain three times when he only has 13 turns (interruption rate: roughly once per 4 turns), he is using interruption in a strategic way to interfere with the Captains conversational flow, as well as to be negatively impolite. The Captain, on the other hand, only interrupts once, and after Jeeves has performed all his interruptions. Moreover, his interruption is to try to sort out what he thinks is a misunderstanding on Jeevess part in turn 22. Actually Jeeves has not misunderstood at all, but is being deliberately obtuse, but we will come to that later (Task E).
Task C Turn 2
How is Jeeves rude to Captain Biggar in turn 2, while appearing to be polite? [Tip: you will need to consider turn-taking and Gricean implicature as well as politeness theory]. 1. CAPTAIN: Good evening
The voice has a familiar ring to JEEVES, but he turns with great calm and continues to dust out ashtrays and polish them with a cloth he has taken from the drawer. 2. JEEVES: Yes, sir? May I suggest that the front door is round to the right, the tradesman's entrance to the left?
Task C Our answer

Captain Biggar says good evening when he enters the room, and it is polite to respond to a greeting with another (often identical) greeting. Jeeves does not do so in his first sentence, thus flouting Grices maxim of relation and implicating (but not stating, of course) that he is unwilling to be cooperative. Yes, sir is superficially polite, given that he uses the deferential address term sir, but implicates that he wants to know what Captain Biggar is doing in the room. After all, he has appeared unannounced. In spite of the fact that Jeevess first sentence is a question, his next sentence follows straight on from the first, not allowing Captain Biggar to respond to it. This is an attack on Biggars negative face. Moreover, the second sentence itself is an implicature-based FTA on the Captains positive and negative faces at the same time. Jeeves attacks Captain Biggars positive face by indicating that he is not sure whether he is a social equal (and therefore entitled to enter the house by the front door), or a lower social being (a tradesman) who would have had to use the inferior tradesmans entrance in stead. He also attacks Biggars negative face by implicating that he should go back out through the window and ask to be let in to the house via whichever entrance is appropriate for him. Note that Jeeves does not tell Captain Biggar straightforwardly that he is unsure about his social status, nor that he should go out and come back in via the correct entrance. This would be too straightforward for him. Instead he implicates these face threats, by flouting Grices maxims of manner and relation. We can also see, if we remove them, that using an interrogative structure and embedding the main import of the sentence under may I suggest (using a polite permissionseeking modal and an indirect main verb) are strategies of linguistic mitigation to tone down the FTAs. The front door is round to the right, the tradesmans entrance to the left is more rude and abrupt. So Jeeves is being impolite, but in an indirect and mitigated way, which makes that impoliteness harder for Biggar to come to terms with. It is also clear that at the same time Jeeves is breaking Grices maxim of quality. He already knows the identity of Captain Biggar, but is pretending not to. This is a violation at the character-character discourse level (he wants to trick Captain Biggar), but is a flout at the author-audience level, thus generating dramatic irony and humour.
Task D Turns 7-10

Try to characterise what is happening in terms of politeness theory in turns 7-10 (reproduced below), and what this tell us about the characters (we also reproduce turn 6, to help contextualise 7-10): 6. JEEVES (interrupting) You are possibly unaware, sir, that your entry into this room constitutes a trespass? 7. CAPTAIN: That be damned. When you're chasing crooks -
8. JEEVES: 9. CAPTAIN:
Crooks? People who take your money and don't pay what they owe are crooks. And we don't stand on ceremony with them in Kuala Lumpur.
10. JEEVES:
You appear to be under some misapprehension. If you have any business with his lordship, will you kindly state it briefly and at once?
Task D Our answer

In turn 6 Jeeves threatens Captain Biggars face by implicating (via a flout of Grices maxim of manner) that he should not be in the room. This indirectly attacks (a) Biggars positive face by implicating that he should be aware of what he is doing, and (b) his negative face, by implicating that he should leave the room. As we have already seen in our discussion of turn 2, Jeeves also uses considerable linguistic mitigation when producing these implicated face threats he uses the deferential term of address sir, the non-factive hedging modal adverb possibly, formal lexis (unaware, entry, constitutes, trespass) and turns a declarative grammatical form into a question via his intonation (cf. the use of the question mark in the text). When Captain Biggar says That be damned in response to Jeevess heavily mitigated impoliteness, he is clearly being baldly impolite in terms of positive politeness (he is expressing his disapproval of what Jeeves has said), and slightly more indirectly (via an implicature that he will not leave) in terms of negative politeness. The swearing expression be damned is mild these days, but would have been much stronger when the play was written. Biggar continues with When you are chasing crooks which is a threat to Jeevess positive face, as he is implicating that Jeeves and his employer are crooks. This, of course, is why Jeeves interrupts him with the echo question, apparently asking for clarification. He is trying to muddy the water. In turn 9, Captain Biggar first specifies the crookery he is accusing Jeeves and Lord Towcester of, and so implicates that they have stolen his money. Then he implicates a threat to them (via a flout of the maxim of relation) by saying what he and his colleagues used to do to crooks in Kuala Lumpur. As with turn 7, Biggar does use implication rather than a bald on record accusation and threat, but we see none of the more complex linguistic mitigation we have seen from Jeeves in turns 2 and 6. In turn 10, Jeeves again considerably mitigates his face threat to Biggar. For example. You appear to be under some misapprehension is much more indirect than Youve made a mistake. The word misapprehension is more abstract and formal, and is also hedged by some. Moreover, Jeevess face threat to Captain Biggar is nested syntactically under the non-factive verb appear.
We are thus beginning to see a marked and consistent contrast between the two men in terms of their use of politeness. Captain Biggar is more direct (though he could have been even ruder if he had tried!), reflecting his anger, straightforwardness and man of action character, whereas Jeeves heavily mitigates his impoliteness, apparently for tactical, reasons, to confuse Biggar and throw him off the scent. This is a pattern which gets repeated in different ways throughout the extract.
Task E Turns 20-26

The contrast between Captain Biggar and Jeeves that we have begun to establish in Tasks B-D can be traced through just about every turn of this extract, and in very many particular ways. But you should be getting the hang of it by now, and we dont want to drive you into the ground by looking at every word, even though you would need to if you were doing a full stylistic analysis. Instead, we will end by looking at the last seven turns of the passage together. Jeeves has now given up on trying to get the Captain to leave, and is concentrating on trying to convince him that he is mistaken in believing that the car he chased from the race course belongs to the Earl of Towcester. Describe the uses and effects of politeness/impoliteness in the turns reproduced below, and compare your thoughts with ours: 20. JEEVES: In the kindliest spirit I suggest that your eyesight needs medical atTWELVEtion. 21. CAPTAIN: My eyesight? My eyesight? Do you know who you're talking to? I am Sahib Biggar. 22. JEEVES: I regret to say that the name is unknown to me. However, Sahib, I can only repeat. 23. CAPTAIN 24. JEEVES: (cutting in on 'Sahib') In this country I use my title of Captain. Sahib or Captain, I still say that you have made the pardonable mistake of misreading a licence number. 25. CAPTAIN: Look, perhaps you're not up on these things. I am a white hunter, the most famous white hunter in Malaya, Indonesia, Africa. I can stand without fear in the path of an oncoming rhino...and why? Because I know I can get him in that one vulnerable spot before he's within sixty paces. 26. JEEVES: I concede that you may have trained your eyes for that purpose, but, poorly informed as I am on the subject, I do not believe that rhinoceri are equipped with number plates.
Task E Our answer

20. JEEVES: In the kindliest spirit I suggest that your eyesight needs medical attention.
Jeeves wants to get Captain Biggar to believe that he has misidentified the car. So he attacks his positive face by saying that he has bad eyesight. But he mitigates this FTA linguistically with the hedge in the kindliest spirit, abstract lexis and suggesting a solution rather than merely stating the deficiency.
21. CAPTAIN:
My eyesight? My eyesight? Do you know who you're talking to? I am Sahib Biggar.
The repeated echo question indicates that Captain Biggar cannot come to terms with what he has just heard. He tries to defend his eyesight by claiming a special status for himself (i.e. is he trying to enhance his own positive face), but in a way that does not properly become clear until turn 25. He is trying to repel the accusation of bad eyesight by pointing out that he is a good shot, something which has led, in big game hunting circles to his being called Sahib Biggar by his native bearers. But because this does not become clear until 25, here he looks as if he is just claiming a high status (and rather unclearly), and so looks pompous in doing so.
22. JEEVES:
I regret to say that the name is unknown to me. However, Sahib, I can only repeat.
Jeeves says that he has not heard of Sahib Biggar (which is a threat to Biggars positive face). He mitigates this through his complex grammar and statement of sadness I regret to say. In Jeevess second sentence it is unclear whether he is using Sahib as an honorific (this seems rather unlikely as he would be uncharacteristically putting himself in a subservient position with respect to Biggar) or pretending that Sahib is Biggars Christian name (in which case it is a violation of the maxim of quality, rather like those we have seen in earlier extracts, and being used to confuse Captain Biggar).
23. CAPTAIN (cutting in on 'Sahib') In this country I use my title of Captain. This is Captain Biggars interrupting turn that we have already looked at in Task B. Although the interruption is impolite, the Captain appears merely to be trying to help Jeeves understand the conditions under which he normally uses the term. So he seems not to have cottoned to Jeevess rudeness in 22.
24. JEEVES:
Sahib or Captain, I still say that you have made the pardonable mistake of misreading a licence number.
Jeeves attacks Biggars positive face by saying that he has made a mistake, mitigating it as usual, this time with the hedging adjective pardonable and formal and abstract lexis. His use of Sahib or Captain suggests either that he is confused about which term to use, or doesnt care. The latter is an FTA attacking Biggars positive face, but the ambiguity mitigates the face threat.
25. CAPTAIN:
Look, perhaps you're not up on these things. I am a white hunter, the most famous white hunter in Malaya, Indonesia, Africa. I can stand without fear in the path of an oncoming rhino...and why? Because I know I can get him in that one vulnerable spot before he's within sixty paces.
Captain Biggar again does not seem to notice the disguised barb in what Jeeves says. He now attacks Jeevess positive face by saying he is ignorant, but with some mitigation (the hedge perhaps), presumably because he is trying to come to terms with what from his perspective is merely a mistake by Jeeves . In the rest of the turn Biggar praises his own positive face in three ways: (a) he claims that he is the most famous white hunter in large parts of the world, (b) that he is fearless, and (c) that he is a crack shot. It is only the last item which properly counts as a rebuttal of the earlier accusation of bad eyesight, suggesting that Captain Biggar, unlike Jeeves, is not very good at defending his position in a conversation. He is too straightforward, and too keen on promoting his own positive face so that others respect him.
26. JEEVES:
I concede that you may have trained your eyes for that purpose, but, poorly informed as I am on the subject, I do not believe that rhinoceri are equipped with number plates.
We now come to Jeevess conversational coup de grce at the end of the excerpt. First, he concedes all that Captain Biggar has said. But then, politely threatening his own positive face (poorly informed as I am on the subject), he pretends that the visual powers needed to be able to aim at a precise spot on a wild animal are irrelevant to the issue in hand. He does this by claiming politely (again with linguistic mitigation I do not believe) something everyone else knows to be the case (i.e. he violates the maxim of quantity), namely that rhinoceri do not have number plates. Thus he has undermined Captain Biggars attempt to defend himself against the accusation of poor
eyesight, and in a way that makes him look extremely silly in other words he has achieved yet another threat to Biggars (positive) face. What we see throughout the extract is a master of the verbal duel making his opponent look very stupid. Captain Biggar has right on his side after all, Jeeves and the Earl of Towcester have stolen his money. But nonetheless we laugh at him throughout.
Topic twelve 'tool' summary

In this topic we have explored two important ways in which the meaning between the lines can be explored in plays. In session A we have looked at how we can infer what is meant from what is said mainly through Grices account of conversational cooperation and its associated maxims and we have seen it at work in extracts from two plays, helping us to understand the subtext of a play and relations between characters. In session B have gone on to explore the role of politeness in conversation in general, and dramatic talk in particular. We have distinguished positive and negative face-threatening acts (FTAs), and how face threat can be mitigated through linguistic means and we have used politeness analysis in extracts from two plays to show how we can infer characterisation, character-based conversational styles and character relations from politeness behaviour. Dont forget to do some reading to follow up on these topics.

In session A of this topic we are going to look at the knowledge we share about objects, people, situations and so on, and how this shared knowledge is used by writers, readers and theatre audiences in the creation of meaning in drama. Some shared knowledge is universal. For example, if we are told that it is raining we will expect the ground to get wet and to see people trying to avoid getting wet, wherever we are in the world. Other kinds of shared knowledge vary from one culture, era and/or part of the world to another. For example, if we are told that a British family are having their main evening meal, we will expect them to eat the savoury course with a knife and fork and the sweet course with a spoon (and possibly a fork). And we would expect them to hold the fork in their left hand. But in the USA it is common to
put the knife down after cutting some food up and transfer the fork to the right hand. And in China we would expect people to eat with chopsticks. These expectations, based on shared knowledge, may not apply in every circumstance, but we would expect them to apply in most circumstances in the relevant cultural context. We share knowledge about every aspect of our lives, including the areas we have already covered on this course. Consider, for example, turn-taking, which we explored in Topic 11. We share knowledge about the typical turn-taking patterns found in different kinds of situations: for example in coffee bar conversations among friends we expect everyone to be able to take turns on an equal basis, whereas in classrooms we expect the teacher to speak first, and to have many more turns perhaps as many as all the other participants put together! We will focus on our use of shared knowledge in understanding dramatic texts, but it is important to remember that, as with all the other areas we have covered on this course, what we learn can also be applied to other text-types, literary and non-literary. In Session A we will apply what we discover to the beginning of a play by Willie Russell called Educating Rita. In Session B we will look at some extracts from what are usually called absurdist plays. We will discover that one of the important features of absurdist drama is that there are overt clashes between what happens in these plays and what we would expect to happen, according to the knowledge we all intuitively share about the relevant situations portrayed.
Shared knowledge
When we communicate with one another, without realising it, we depend upon the fact that we share all sorts of background knowledge with our interlocutors. So, if you want to tell someone about a wonderful meal you had in a restaurant the previous evening, you are unlikely to begin by telling them that the restaurant contained tables and chairs, that you had to order your food before eating it, and so on. In other words, you rely on the fact that your addressee shares with you quite a lot of knowledge about restaurants, and you can therefore limit yourself to the most interesting parts of your experience. Similarly, if you make a reference to my husband or my wife in the course of the conversation, you would expect your hearers to assume that you are married, that you live with that person, and so on. In the majority of the cases, we don't need to think consciously about the contribution of shared knowledge to the success of our interactions with others.
Task A - Filling in gaps - back to the restaurant! Task B - Making predictions - back to the flat! Task C - In a hospital operating theatre Task D -How is our shared knowledge organised?
Task A Filling in gaps - back to the restaurant!

The fact that we share knowledge means that writers do not have to describe absolutely everything in a scene. They can depend on their readers to fill in the gaps for them, leaving them to concentrate on the aspects that are more important thematically. Imagine that you are watching a TV drama and you see a close-up of a young couple who are in love, having a meal together in a restaurant and talking intimately while eating. Next the camera cuts to a scene where the couple are walking away from a taxi, up some steps and into a block of flats. Think carefully about what must have happened in between the two camera shots and write down what you assume the couple have done. What happened in the restaurant after they finished their meal? What happened after they left the restaurant? Then compare your version with ours.
Task A Our answer

After finishing their meal and before leaving the restaurant they will have to pay for what they have eaten. This is normally done by calling the waiter and asking for the bill. The waiter then brings the bill and the couple pay (perhaps with cash, perhaps by cheque or credit card). They will probably give the waiter a tip. Then they will get up, perhaps put on their coats, walk to the door and leave, probably saying thank you and goodbye as they do so. If they arrive at the block of flats in a taxi, they must have hailed one outside the restaurant, or telephoned for one, probably from inside the restaurant. They will have told the taxi driver where they wanted to go just before, or just after, getting into the taxi. They will almost certainly have sat next one another on the back seat of the taxi. When the taxi arrived at the destination it must have stopped and they must have got out. If they are walking away from the taxi they must already have paid the bill and tipped the driver. You may not have picked up on exactly the same aspects as us, because there are many others that could be spelled out, depending partly on how much detail you decide to go in for (they must have put one foot in front of another in order to walk away from the taxi, for example!). But you are likely to have a fair amount of agreement with our account. Finally, it is important to notice that what we assume is not guaranteed. They might not have paid the restaurant bill (perhaps they ran away without paying!). Similarly, they might not have paid the
taxi driver (perhaps the taxi driver is afraid of them because he knows they are vicious gangsters). But scenarios like this are unlikely (they go against what we expect from our shared knowledge) and so would be marked. They would need explicit evocation and an explanation within the world of the drama (the dramatic equivalent of something like we have said inside the brackets above).
Task B Making predictions - back to the flat!

Now lets go back to our two young lovers. They are just opening the door of the young womans flat. What do you expect to see inside? What do you expect them to do, once they have got inside? Write down your predictions and compare them with ours.
Task B Our answer

We would expect the flat to have a number of rooms: a living room, a bedroom, a kitchen (or possibly a kitchen area within the living room) and a bathroom. There are possible variations on this pattern, depending on the size and opulence of the flat (it might have a hall, a toilet separate from the bathroom, more than one bedroom), but we would expect it to have at least the rooms we specified. On the other hand, we would be very surprised if it had a gymnasium, a swimming pool or a laboratory. We would predict that the young couple will probably end up in the bedroom, in bed, making love (that is what we expect to happen in fictional romance). They might well spend some time first in the living room, perhaps having a drink or kissing. They are much less likely to go to the kitchen and cook themselves a meal (people dont normally eat two meals within a short time of one another), or play Scrabble or Monopoly for the rest of the evening (young lovers usually have other things to fill their time with). From this we can see that we can use our shared knowledge to make informed predictions. If a play contains objects or events which go against our shared knowledge assumptions, we will expect them to be dramatically important and to be explained by the time the play ends.
Task C In a hospital operating theatre

Most people have not been inside a hospital operating theatre while conscious. Even if you have been in one, you will probably have been anaesthetised at the time. Yet we can still say with reasonable certainty what we would expect to see if we did go into an operating theatre an operating table, trolleys with scalpels and other surgical tools, doctors and nurses wearing theatre gowns, face masks, and so on. How do we know about such things if we have not experienced them?
Task C Our answer

A lot of the shared information we assume is not perceived directly, but indirectly, through dramatic fiction (films, plays, TV dramas, novels etc) and other means (e.g. newspapers and magazines, what others tell us). It is amazing how much knowledge we share which has come to us from fictional sources or from TV programmes. And this sort of knowledge can also be dangerous, because although it may be common knowledge, it may not be entirely accurate. This is where stereotypes come from.
Task D - How is our shared knowledge organised?

Clearly, our shared knowledge comes from shared experience. Although we all have personal experiences, individual to each of us, we all know that many of those experiences are similar in various ways. Most of the people you know at university will probably have attended different secondary schools from you. But nonetheless, you will all have similar expectations about what secondary schools are like, what the teachers are like, what sorts of clothes they wear, how they behave, and so on. Hence the phrase secondary school will conjure up a set of individual pictures for each of us, but those pictures will have many similarities with the pictures other people conjure up. One possibility is that we store all our bits of knowledge in our brains in an unordered list, as it were, but this seems unlikely. It is difficult to see how we could efficiently conjure up all the different elements of restaurant or school, for example, when one of these concept is raised in our minds through textual reference or an image of the outside an appropriate building in a film. So the Psychologists suggest that such knowledge is organised into what they call schemata. In other words, we store the information about what lectures are like in a lecture schema, information we have about cinemas in a cinema schema, and so on. Below you will find an image of the head of a typical student (!). Click on the head and you can see (a little bit) of his schematic organisation.
You can see that we have used the visual metaphor of a filing cabinet here. This is a helpful metaphor to use, as it raises the possibility of similar schemas being filed near one another (in the same drawer, as it were). If you think about your schema for a hotel service counter and an airport check-in counter, for example, you can see that they share various features. New arrivals go up to the counter with their bags in each case and an official behind the desk checks them in. So in cognitive retrieval terms, it would make sense for the two schemas to be organised in memory in a way that relates them together - this would help us to retrieve related schemata more easily. There is still an awful lot about how memory is stored in the brain that is unclear, but the idea of organised schematas certainly looks plausible, and we will use it in our account of how we
understand drama in this topic. On the next page, though, we will first explore in a bit more detail the kinds of things we can have schematic knowledge of.
More about shared schematic knowledge

General knowledge of the world we inhabit
It should be clear from the work we have done on the previous page (shared knowledge) that writers can use the knowledge that we all share. There are two main ways that writers can use schematic assumptions. Firstly, they can omit details which are unimportant to the plot or thematic meaning, relying on the reader to fill them in for them. This saves space and makes the writing less boring. They can also use schematic knowledge productively to create special effects - by writing in a way that disrupts our conventional schematic expectations. We will explore this latter aspect later in this topic, but first it will be helpful to explore in more detail what sorts of things we possess schematic knowledge about. In general terms we will discover that we have detailed schematic knowledge about an enormous number of things.
Task A - Schematic knowledge about objects Task B - Schematic knowledge about people Task C - Schematic knowledge about places and situations Task D - Knowledge about language and of communicative conventions
Task A Schematic knowledge about objects

We use dinner forks to spear or hold food and put it in to our mouths, and this function determines to a large degree what the permissible variation is. Dinner forks need to be small enough to hold in one hand and move food from plate to mouth. So the garden fork, although a fork, is ruled out because it is much too large for the job. The spear fails on size grounds too, but also because it only has one tine the pointed part which can be stuck into the object being speared. Schematically, forks typically have three or four tines, as this number is optimum for the task. A two tines configuaration is also possible, though we have never seen one with just one tine. It would be possible to imagine a dinner fork with five tines or more, though we cant ever remember seeing one. Ten tines seem well beyond the bounds of possibility, though. Chopsticks have the same function as the fork, but come from a culture with different assumptions concerning food preparation. Dinner forks are usually held in the left hand in Europe, and the right hand has a knife with which to cut the food, which can be put on the plate in large chunks needing to be cut before eating. Cultures which use chopsticks do not have dinner knives and usually cut the food into small pieces prior to cooking. So a knife is not necessary and the spearing function of the fork also unnecessary (indeed, it is usually
considered inelegant in chopstick cultures to spear a largish lump of food with your chopsticks). The hand can also be used in some cultures to perform the shovelling function of the fork, and it is arguable that the fingers are the rough equivalent of the tines of a fork. But although the hand may be thought of as a rough equivalent to a fork it can never count as an actual fork as the fork needs to be an object, not a body part, which can be held in one hand. This leaves us with three dinner forks in the original set in Task A. They are all roughly (but not exactly) the same, and they all have a set of tines, which would be made of a cheap, hard metal and a handle. The handle can vary in composition (metal, wood, bone, plastic) and shape to some degree, and the overall size can vary too, as the drawings show. But all these variations are within fairly small limits, constrained by the function of the dinner fork. So these seem to be the schematic assumptions we have about forks. Interestingly, all of our pictures of dinner forks have four tines we couldnt find any usable pictures on the internet which had more or less. This suggests that although two, three or five tines are possible, four tines is probably part of our schematic assumptions for the dinner fork.
Task B Schematic knowledge about people

We also have schematic knowledge about categories of people. There is no doubt about which of the people below we would assume schematically is the astronaut and which is the airplane pilot:
As a more detailed example, we will explore our schematic knowledge about what university teachers are like. Select from the set of people below those which you think look like university teachers. As you do this, write down your observations about your schematic assumptions (what they look like, what they do etc) for what university teachers are like. Then click on the Compare button to compare your selection and observations with ours.
yes no maybe yes no maybe
yes no maybe yes no maybe yes no maybe
Task B Our answer

The man in the uniform is unlikely to be a university teacher because university teachers dont normally wear institutional uniforms (even though the ubiquitous informal trousers plus shirt/blouse and or jumper constitute the informal equivalent of a uniform). The man in the mortar board and gown is stereotypical, and would have been common in earlier generations, but is now rather rare. This example helps us to see a distinction between the stereotype and the schema. Stereotypes are often outdated schemas or exaggerations of schemas. Even so, the stereotype is bound to share some features with the schematic prototype. Even though there are many more women university teachers than there used to be, males still predominate. And although most academics do not need a stick to walk with, age is a factor: even the youngest university tedachers will be in their late twenties because of the time it takes to train to PhD level (a normal prerequisite for academia these days). Glasses are also pretty common, being largely a function of age and the need to do lots of reading in the job. The baby is clearly much too young to have gained the requisite knowledge and skills, even if it is a child prodigy. And the (lack of) clothing and dummy are pretty unlikely too! The woman with blackboard rubber and chalk fits the university teacher
category (though it is worth noting that blackboard and chalk are becoming rare in the early 21st century, as is the skirt). In terms of appearance, the female figure is ambiguous between the categories of university teacher and schoolteacher. The figure of the man with the tie, like the woman, is somewhat ambiguous. Some male university teachers do wear ties, so this aspect of his dress fits. But given the rather elementary sum on the blackboard, you may well conclude that he is a primary school teacher rather than a university teacher unless he is using the simple example for some other teaching purpose.
Task C Schematic knowledge about places and situations

We also have schematic knowledge about places and situations. This knowledge can usefully be subdivided into (i) scene knowledge: the schematic knowledge we have about what objects, and with what properties, we would normally expect to find in a particular place and (ii) script knowledge: what we would expect to happen in that place, and in what order. We will use lectures as our example. First we will test out your schematic scene knowledge for lecture theatres and then we will explore your schematic assumptions about lecture scripts.
Part a - schematic scene knowledge for lecture theatres Part b - schematic assumptions about lecture scripts
Task C Schematic knowledge about places and situations Part a - Scene knowledge
Scene knowledge: First of all, think about your schematic assumptions about lecture theatres, and then click on the yes/no boxes below to indicate which things you would expect to find inside a lecture theatre. When you click on the Compare button, to compare your judgements with ours, you will also be able to compare your more general schematic assumptions about what lecture theatres look like with ours:
Yes
No
Yes
No
Yes
No
Yes
No
Yes
No
Yes
No
Yes
No
Yes
No
Task C Schematic knowledge about places and situations Answer to Part a, scene knowledge
Although rabbits, teddy bears and frogs might, on occasion, turn up in lecture theatres, they are pretty rare, we think. Prototypically, a lecture theatre will have a blackboard, OHP machine and a screen at the front (though blackboards seem to be gradually disappearing as the OHP, video, computer etc. and data projector take over). We schematically assume one lecturer giving the lecture, with many students facing the lecturer in rows, taking notes. Large lecture theatres are often raked, to make it easier for those at the back to see. And students typically sit as far away from the lecturer as they can (why is that? - not 'cool' to sit at the front?)
Task C Schematic knowledge about places and situations Part b - Script knowledge
First of all, think about what events you would expect to happen in a lecture theatre, and in what order. Then look at the set of events described below.
Remove the events which do not prototypically occur in lectures. Then rearrange the events you think can occur in lectures into what you think is the most likely chronological order. When you have done this you can see if you get the same answers as us, and at the same time compare more generally your assumptions about lecture scripts with ours. 1. The lecturer distributes the handouts. 2. A student distributes the handouts for the lecturer. 3. A student gives the lecturer a cup of tea and an apple. 4. An ice cream seller walks up and down the steps of the lecture theatre, selling ice creams. 5. The lecturer summarises what the lecture will be about. 6. The lecturer arrives. 7. The lecturer switches off the overhead projector. 8. The students rush in and sit eagerly as near to the lecturer as they can. 9. The lecturer tells the students what they need to do in between the lecture and before the seminar which follows it. 10. The students start to take notes. 11. The lecturer reads out a text. 12. The lecturer switches on the overhead projector to display a text. 13. The students saunter in and sit as near to the back of the lecture theatre as they can. 14. The students wait until the lecturer has finished and then put their notepads away. 15. The students leave after the lecturer has finished. 16. While the lecturer is still talking the students start putting their notepads away and some begin to leave. 17. The lecturer analyses a text using a copy of it on the overhead projector. 18. The students who were late each receive 20 lashes as punishment for their rudeness.
Part b - Our answer

3, 4 and 18 are highly deviant for UK lectures (though, interestingly, in some countries students do provide the lecturer with tea). The reason that it is conceivable, even though deviant, to think of ice-cream sellers in lecture theatres is that cinemas and lecture theatres do share some schematic features (cinemas have a screen at the front, raked rows of seats for the audience etc). So it would be possible to think of a spoof of a lecture in a TV sketch having an ice-cream seller, for example because they schemas for lecture theatres and cinemas overlap to some degree. We leave you to work out the possible scenarios where 18 might become possible! 2, 8, 14 and 15 are possible but unlikely. Modern UK students, in our experience at least, are not so considerate (but compare other times and other places . . .) Of the rest, some are optional. Not all lectures have handouts, for example, not all lecturers summarise what their lectures will be about, and not all lectures involve analysing texts. But we
have included them here because they are typical of Stylistics lectures at Lancaster. We think the order is: 13. The students saunter in and sit as near to the back of the lecture theatre as they can. 6. The lecturer arrives. 1. The lecturer distributes the handouts. 5. The lecturer summarises what the lecture will be about. 10. The students start to take notes. 12. The lecturer switches on the overhead projector to display a text. 11. The lecturer reads out a text. 17. The lecturer analyses a text using a copy of it on the overhead projector. 7. The lecturer switches off the overhead projector. 16. While the lecturer is still talking the students start putting their notepads away and some begin to leave. 9. The lecturer tells the students what they need to do in between the lecture and before the seminar which follows it.
Task D Knowledge about language and of communicative conventions

We also have knowledge, some of which is schematic, about language and the conventions we use when communicating with one another. Below we explore examples of four different kinds of linguistic knowledge we possess.
Part 1 - We have knowledge about the meanings of words Part 2 - We have knowledge about the meanings of linguistic structures Part 3 - We have knowledge about the conditions for the happy performance of particular speech acts Part 4 - We have knowledge about the language styles appropriate for different situations

Part 1 - We have knowledge about the meanings of words. Lets assume that we are told that someone is a bachelor. Which of the statements below about that person are true, which untrue, which likely and which unlikely?
TRUE FALSE LIKELY UNLIKELY

The person is male. The person is female.
The person has a wife. The person has a husband. The person is thirteen years old. The person is thirty years old. The person is a father. The person is a mother. The person favourite drink is beer. The persons favourite drink is white wine.

Part 1 - Our Answer The person is male. TRUE The person is female. FALSE The person has a wife. FALSE The person has a husband. FALSE The person is thirteen years old. FALSE The person is thirty years old. LIKELY The person is a father. UNLIKELY The person is a mother. FALSE The person favourite drink is beer. LIKELY The persons favourite drink is white wine. UNLIKELY
Discussion
Note that in this case some of the statements follow logically from the meaning of the word bachelor (e.g. bachelors are male and unmarried by definition). It would seem also to follow logically (by definition) that a bachelor cant be three years old, as it only makes sense to talk of someone being a bachelor or not when they are old enough to decide whether or not to remain unmarried. But there are some complexities. In other cultures and times, children can certainly be married (though it is still not clear that it makes sense to refer to a male thirteen-year-old child as a bachelor in such a culture). Other things follow statistically (are more, or less, likely) from our schematic knowledge (e.g. British men tend to prefer drinking beer to white wine, but a few will prefer white wine).

Part 2 - We have knowledge about the meanings of linguistic structures. Lets pretend that you are male (and married) and someone asks you the following question: Have you stopped beating your wife? This question invites a YES/NO answer. Lets assume that you have never beaten your wife. What is the problem you face?

Part 2 - Our answer The problem is that the question involves a presupposition that you have been beating your wife. If you answer YES, you will clearly be acknowledging guilt, but if you choose the opposite answer, NO, you will still be acknowledging guilt. This is because in order for a statement to be true or false all of its presuppositions must be true. So, if you want to get out of the bind that the question induces you need to avoid both yes and no, and deny the questions presupposition instead (e.g. Ive never beaten my wife she is bigger and stronger than me, so I wouldnt dare!). We can see, then, that our general schematic knowledge about the presuppositional structure of sentences helps us to infer particular presuppositions which are held by particular sentences even when they are not asserted (as in the above example). Our schematic assumptions about the presuppositional structure of sentences thus help us to infer what we called the meaning between the lines (as we called it in Topic 12 of this course) of particular sentences others utter or write. There are many kinds of presuppositions, and we do not have space to go into them here in any detail. But it may be helpful for you to know that Have you stopped beating your wife contains a number of other presuppositions. It presupposes that you have a wife, that you and your wife both exist, and that you are male youre your wife is female. Note, then, that if you, the real reader of the sentence, happens to be female and unmarried (which is the case for the large majority of students taking Language and Style course), you have to pretend that you are the you of the sentence in order to do this task. This is a one-sentence example of entering into a fictional world, something you do much more extensively when you read novels and plays. For the duration of reading or watching Shakespeares Macbeth, for example, you pretend to yourself that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are the real king and queen of Scotland, and so on.

Part 3 - We have knowledge about the conditions for the happy performance of particular speech acts. When we say things in particular contexts we often perform actions through what we say, and linguists and philosophers normally call these actions speech acts. Lets explore an example to show what we mean. Below is a sentence. Lets pretend that you have just said it. Im really really sorry. Now answer the following questions and then compare your answers with ours. 1. What did you do (what speech act did you perform) when you uttered this sentence? 2. What sort of thing must have happened before you uttered the sentence? 3. What are you committed to after you have uttered the sentence?

Part 3 - Our answer What did you do (what speech act did you perform) when you uttered this sentence? This is a prototypical example of the speech act of apology. It counts as an expression of regret for something you assume/acknowledge you are responsible for. What sort of thing must have happened before you uttered the sentence? Something must have happened which you are responsible for and which was not in the hearers interests. Typically you will have performed an action which has hurt or offended the hearer in some way (for example you may have dropped a heavy book on another students foot, or have accidentally run their cat over with your car). Sometimes the action might be performed by someone (or something) you feel responsible for (for example if your small child puts their dirty hands on someones new dress, or if a slate comes off your roof and hits your neighbours cat). What are you committed to after you have uttered the sentence? If you have apologised for something you have done, you undertake not to repeat the offence in the future. If you are apologising for someone or something you feel responsible for, even though things are not entirely under your control, you undertake to take action to try to prevent a similar occurrence (for example by talking to your small child about appropriate behaviour when near new dresses, or by getting someone to examine and replace any remaining dodgy slates on your roof).
Overall, it is important to notice that we have intuitive schematic knowledge about lots of speech acts (e.g. commands, requests, promises, threats, enquiries),and that they all involve knowing about (a) what utterances count as appropriate for the particular speech act involved (for example Go away cant be an apology) and (b) what contextual conditions are appropriate for each speech act (for example Ill see you tomorrow is a promise if the visit is clearly in the hearers interest but a threat if it is clearly not in the hearers interest). Part 4 - We have knowledge about the language styles appropriate for different situations. (a) Where would you predict the following extracts to occur? 1. With 4mm circular needle cast on 202sts and work in ROWS of garter st as folls: 2. 6.00 GMTV (3722671). 9.25 Trisha (T) (8547958). 10.30 Dr otter (R) (T). 3. The photolytic decomposition of phenylazotriphenylmethane in benzene apparently follows a similar course to the pyrolytic decomposition discussed above. (b) Where have we explored this kind of knowledge before on this course, and how might it be important in the analysis of drama? Part 4 - Our Answers Part (a) 1. In a knitting pattern 2. In a TV guide. 3. In a chemistry text book. Part (b) We looked at our knowledge of language styles and style variation in Topic 6, when we were beginning to explore the stylistic analysis of prose fiction. Knowledge of language styles (often called registers) can be helpful in drama in a number of ways. For example, at the beginning of a play, or scene, if the actors speak in a well-known style it will help us to place them in the fictional world. For example, imagine a radio play which begins with the words . . . and you will be hanged by the neck until dead. You will immediately imagine a court room in Britain before 1965 (in the UK the death penalty was suspended in 1965 and permanently removed in 1970), with a judge sentencing a murderer to death. So you have placed the talk both situationally and temp orally through knowledge about register. In comedies or absurdist plays sometimes the humour or absurdity is sometimes generated by the use of a dramatically inappropriate language style (e.g. a man talking to a small child in a very formal style will suggest, perhaps comically, that he does not know how to talk to children).
Our schematic knowledge of a typical tutorial

On the next page we are going to begin to work on an extract from the beginning of a play by Willy Russell. This play, which was first performed in 1980, is about a mature English literature student and her tutor. She is a new Open University student and the tutor is a lecturer at another university who is teaching on an Open University summer course for the first time. They are just about to meet for the first time, for their first tutorial. Before we meet them, lets explore some of our schematic assumptions about them. We have asked some former Language and Style students for their schematic assumptions, and when you compare your answers with ours we will actually be summarising what they told us.
Task A The tutor Task B The student Task C How would we expect them to act towards one another in their first tutorial?
Task A The tutor

What would you expect the tutor to be like? Male or female? What social class? What sort of clothes? What sort of accent? What would you expect the tutor to be called?
Task A Our answer

Former Language and Style students, like us, expected the tutor to be male (even today there are more male lecturers than female ones, even in Arts subjects, and in 1980 the balance would have been even more male-dominated). They also expected him to be middle class, speak standard English and (in spite of the fact that almost none of their own male tutors are like this) be conservatively dressed, with a (brown tweed?) jacket and tie. They came up with respectablesounding names like Peter and David. These schematic expectations are all realised in the film of the play in other words the tutor conforms solidly to our schematic expectations. He is called Frank, a name which correlates with the expectations, and is played by Michael Caine. Frank is dressed in a tweed jacket and tie, and has short, well-groomed hair.
Task B The student

What is your schematic image of a female mature student like? What social class? What sort of accent? What sort of clothes? What would you expect her to be called?
Task B Our answer

For former Language and Style students, like us, the typical female mature student would be middle class, reasonably educated, speak standard English and be dressed conservatively, particularly as she is about to have her very first tutorial with her tutor. We would expect her to be on her best behaviour, and her dress would reflect this. Respectable names like Jane, Catherine or Emma come to mind. In fact the person in the film of the play contrasts dramatically with the stereotype. The student is called Rita, and the play is Educating Rita. Rita is not a very common name, and is associated with working class women (cf. the Beatles song Lovely Rita, Meter Maid. In the film, Rita is played by Julie Walters, speaks with a marked Liverpudlian accent and is dressed in an outrageously short white mini-skirt and totters about in white high-heeled shoes. It is clear, then, that there is a large contrast between our this character and our expectations, and indeed between the tutor and the student. The contrast between the two characters, and between Rita and our schematic expectations, looks likely to be a source of dramatic tension in the play.
Task C How would we expect them to act towards one another in their first tutorial?
What would you expect the turn-taking to be like? Who will speak first, and who second? Who will initiate and who will respond? What kinds of speech acts would you typically expect each person to use? Who will control the topic? Who will have the longest turns? Would there be any interruptions? If so, who would do the interrupting? What terms of address would you expect them to use towards one another? How would you expect them to act towards one another in terms of politeness?
Task C Our answer

Here we will spell out our schematic assumptions about a first tutorial. Then we will be able to compare these assumptions with what actually happens when we look at the extract from the beginning of the play in the next two pages of the website. 1. We would expect Frank, the tutor to speak first, and to initiate in the various subsequent conversational exchanges. We would expect Rita to respond to Franks initiations.
2. We would expect Frank to ask questions and Rita to answer. Frank might also use more directive speech acts like commands, and Rita would obey them. In general we would expect her to accede to Franks conversational direction. 3. We would also expect Frank to control the topic and have the longest turns. 4. There may well not be any interruptions at all, given the polite context, but if there are any, we would expect Frank to interrupt Rita, perhaps to correct any misapprehensions she might have. 5. Rita will probably use title (Dr?) + surname initially when addressing Frank. We might expect him to use title (Miss/Mrs?) + surname for her, or perhaps her first name, if he knows it already from the paperwork he will have. After they have got to know one another, they may well both move to first name only, or if Frank is more formally inclined, he may expect her to continue to use title + surname while he uses first name only. 6. Given that it is their first meeting we would expect them both to be polite towards one another, perhaps with Rita being even more polite and respectful than Frank. She is at a social disadvantage, after all. Now lets look at what happens at the beginning of the play, and see whether or not Frank and Ritas initial interaction conforms to our schematic expectations . . .
This extract is very near to the beginning of the play Educating Rita by Willy Russell
. Rita is
an Open University student who is meeting Frank, her English tutor, for the first time. The conversation takes place in Franks office. Rita has knocked and Frank has said Come in, but Rita has had some difficulty in getting the door to open. Irritated, she now stands by Franks desk. Read the extract below two or three times, until you feel you are reasonably familiar with it. As you do so, remember the schematic assumptions we explored on the previous pager about tutors, mature students and how you would expect them to interact in a first tutorial. Jot down how you think these characters, and this interaction, compare with what you would normally expect. There are no answers on this page for you to compare your views with. Instead, when you have finished your work on this page, go the next one, where we will analyse the extract more carefully. You can then see in detail whether your reactions are justified by an analysis of the text. FRANK stares at RITA who stands by a desk 1. FRANK: 2. RITA: You are? What am I?
3. FRANK: 4. RITA: 5. FRANK 6. RITA:
Pardon? What? (looking for the admission papers): Now you are? I'm a what?
FRANK looks up and then returns to the papers as RITA goes to hang her coat on the door hooks. 7. RITA 8. FRANK: 9. RITA 10. FRANK (noticing the picture): That's a nice picture, isn't it? (She goes up to it.) Erm...yes. I suppose it is...nice. (studying the picture): It's very erotic. (looking up): Actually I don't think I've looked at it for about ten years, but yes, I suppose it is. 11. RITA: There's no suppose about it. Look at those tits.
FRANK coughs and goes back to looking for the admission paper. 12. RITA: Is it supposed to be erotic? I mean when he painted it do y'think he wanted to turn people on? 13. FRANK: 14. RITA: Erm...probably. I'll bet he did y'know. Y'don't paint pictures like that just so that people can admire the brush strokes do y'? 15. FRANK 16. RITA: (giving a short laugh): No...no ... you're probably right. This was the pornography of its day, wasnt it? Its sort of like Men Only isnt it? But in those days they had to pretend it wasnt erotic so they made it religious, didnt they? Do you think its erotic? 17. FRANK 18. RITA: 19. FRANK: (taking a look): I think it's very beautiful. I didn't ask y' if it was beautiful. But the term 'beautiful' covers the many feelings I have about that picture, including the feeling that, yes, it is erotic. 20. RITA 21. FRANK: 22. RITA: 23. FRANK: 24. RITA: (coming back to the desk): D'y'get a lot like me? Pardon? Do you get a lot of students like me? Not exactly, no... I was dead surprised when they took me. I don't suppose they would have done if it'd been a proper university. The Open University's different though, isn't it? 25. FRANK: I've...erm...not had much more experience of it than you. This is the first O.U. work I've done. 26. RITA: 27. FRANK: D'y'need the money? I do as a matter of fact.
28. RITA:
It's terrible these days, the money, isn't it? With the inflation an' that. You work for the ordinary university, don't y'? With the real students. The Open University's different isn't it?
29. FRANK: 30. RITA 31. FRANK: 32. RITA: 33. FRANK: 34. RITA:
It's supposed to embrace a more comprehensive studentship, yes. (inspecting a bookcase): Degrees for dishwashers. Would you...erm...like to sit down? No! Can I smoke? (She goes to her bag and rummages in it.) Tobacco? Yeh. (She half laughs.) Was that a joke? (She takes out a packet of cigarettes and a lighter.) Here - d'y'want one? (She takes out two cigarettes and dumps the packet on the desk.)
35. FRANK 36. RITA: 37. FRANK 38. RITA: 39. FRANK:
(after a pause): Ah...I'd love one. Well, have one. (after a pause): I...don't smoke. I made a promise not to smoke. Well, I won't tell anyone. Promise?
View 'Educating Rita' video clip
Analysing Rita
Task A - General interpretative thoughts Task B - Who speaks most, and how does this compare with our schematic expectations? Task C - Interruptions and indications of non-fluency Task D - Who controls the topic?
Task E - What terms of address to the characters use to one another? Task F - Speech Acts Task G Politeness Task H - Summary
Note: You will find a link to enable you to refer to the passage under the 'useful links' section of the menu on the left.
Task A - General interpretative thoughts

Lets begin by giving you our thoughts concerning the questions we asked on the previous page. Frank Rita Interaction
Frank: Frank seems to behave in a way consistent with our schematic expectations (this is also reflected in the way in which he is dressed in the film). He appears to be polite (for example he asks Rita if she would like to sit down) and to consider carefully the issues raised, as you would expect an academic to. Nothing in the graphology for his turns indicates a non-standard accent, and he uses standard English grammar and an extended range of vocabulary (cf. turn 29: Its supposed to embrace a more comprehensive studentship . . .). Rita: Rita does not conform in any way to the schematic stereotype we outlined, and the way in which she was dressed in the film correlates with this. The graphology for her turns indicates that she speaks with a non-standard, probably working class, accent, and her grammar is decidedly more informal than Franks (cf. turn 28: Its terrible these days, the money, isnt it? With the inflation an that. You work for the ordinary university, dont y? With the real students.). In turn 24 (I was dead surprised . . .), she uses an adjective in a position where standard English would demand an adverb. She also seems much more pushy, feisty and opinionated than we would expect a student to be on meeting her university tutor for the first time. Notice, then, that she, and her behaviour, are foregrounded because she deviates from our schematic assumptions about female mature students. We will clearly need to explore this in more detail. The interaction: This seems not to work as we would expect in a first tutorial (and so is foregrounded), and this fact is clearly related to what we have already noticed about Rita. She appears to take the initiative in
ways we would not expect, and something odd also appears to happen at the very beginning of the interaction. We will explore these issues in more detail in the tasks that follow.
Task B Who speaks most, and how does this compare with our schematic expectations?
Who would you expect to speak most and why? Calculate (i) the number of turns for each character and (ii) the average number of words per turn for each character. What do you find? Number of turns The two characters, as we would expect given that there are only two people in the conversation, have roughly equal numbers of turns. Frank has 19 and Rita 20. But on closer inspection the turn distribution is not quite as even as these overall figures would suggest. We happen to have started and stopped the extract on Franks turns, so we would expect him to have one more turn than Rita, not one less. The disparity comes about because of turns 6/7 and 11/12. In turn 6, Rita asks Im a what? but Frank does not respond, presumably because he has been taken aback by her impolite question. So Rita gets an extra turn here, as she restarts the conversation in 7. Something similar happens in 11/12. Rita uses a taboo term Look at those tits in referring to the painting on Franks wall and Frank does not respond. He searches through his paperwork instead (another sign of embarrassment), and Rita steals another turn by continuing to ask questions about the painting. Turn-length Frank: 19 turns, 126 words, average = 6.6 words per turn Rita: 20 turns, 212 words, average = 10.6 words per turn We would expect Frank, as the most powerful participant socially, to have more words per turn than Rita, but actually she speaks getting on for twice as many words per turn as Frank. Moreover, the disparity is arguably a bit bigger than the figures above suggest, as the counting method we have used has benefited Franks count at the expense of Ritas. We have counted graphological words (words separated by spaces in the text this is what word count facilities on word processors do) to arrive at the above figures. This means that Franks four non-lexical hesitancy markers erm have been included as words, and that cliticised expressions (where one word is reduced and attached to another e.g. Ive, yknow, dyget) have been counted as one word, not two or three. Ritas speech displays quite a bit more cliticisation than Franks, as it is being used to mark her working class dialect. Both these factors would increase the disparity if we had included
them in the calculations. Even simple things like word counts turn out to be more complex than one might imagine at first glance . . . This turn-taking pattern which goes against our schematic assumptions helps us to see how the force of Ritas personality is affecting the turn-taking.
Task B Who speaks most, and how does this compare with our schematic expectations?
Who would you expect to speak most and why? Calculate (i) the number of turns for each character and (ii) the average number of words per turn for each character. What do you find? Number of turns The two characters, as we would expect given that there are only two people in the conversation, have roughly equal numbers of turns. Frank has 19 and Rita 20. But on closer inspection the turn distribution is not quite as even as these overall figures would suggest. We happen to have started and stopped the extract on Franks turns, so we would expect him to have one more turn than Rita, not one less. The disparity comes about because of turns 6/7 and 11/12. In turn 6, Rita asks Im a what? but Frank does not respond, presumably because he has been taken aback by her impolite question. So Rita gets an extra turn here, as she restarts the conversation in 7. Something similar happens in 11/12. Rita uses a taboo term Look at those tits in referring to the painting on Franks wall and Frank does not respond. He searches through his paperwork instead (another sign of embarrassment), and Rita steals another turn by continuing to ask questions about the painting. Turn-length Frank: 19 turns, 126 words, average = 6.6 words per turn Rita: 20 turns, 212 words, average = 10.6 words per turn We would expect Frank, as the most powerful participant socially, to have more words per turn than Rita, but actually she speaks getting on for twice as many words per turn as Frank. Moreover, the disparity is arguably a bit bigger than the figures above suggest, as the counting method we have used has benefited Franks count at the expense of Ritas. We have counted graphological words (words separated by spaces in the text this is what word count facilities on word processors do) to arrive at the above figures. This means that Franks four non-lexical hesitancy markers erm have been included as words, and that cliticised expressions (where one word is
reduced and attached to another e.g. Ive, yknow, dyget) have been counted as one word, not two or three. Ritas speech displays quite a bit more cliticisation than Franks, as it is being used to mark her working class dialect. Both these factors would increase the disparity if we had included them in the calculations. Even simple things like word counts turn out to be more complex than one might imagine at first glance . . . This turn-taking pattern which goes against our schematic assumptions helps us to see how the force of Ritas personality is affecting the turn-taking.
Task C Interruptions and indications of non-fluency

(i) Are there any interruptions? If so, who interrupts who, and with what effect? (ii) What indications of non-fluency are there? Who are they associated with, and what effect do they have?
interruptions
Non-fluency markers
Task C Interruptions and indications of non-fluency

Interruptions: There are only two interruptions, which in this text are indicated at the ends of turns by . . . In both cases (turns 8/9 and 23/24), Frank is interrupted by Rita. Schematically we would probably expect no interruptions at all, and if there were any we would expect Frank, the socially powerful participant, to interrupt Rita, not the other way round. So this pattern correlates with what we saw in Task B, and contributes to Ritas unusually forceful conversational style. Non-fluency markers: There are two non-fluency markers, the non-lexical word erm and the long dash coming between words, which indicates a pause. Thus we have both a voiced and an unvoiced marker of hesitation. They only occur in Franks speech. He uses erm four times and the pause marker occurs 11 times. These both suggest hesitancy in Franks speech, and as this is the beginning of the play these non-fluency markers can be interpreted in two main ways. They might indicate a characteristic hesitant speech style for Frank, which we might associate stereotypically with academic, or they could indicate that he is embarrassed by Ritas behaviour. Or perhaps they could indicate both these things at the same time. Later in the text Franks speech does not consistently display these non-fluency markers, and so an actor playing Frank in a performance of
the play is likely to interpret them here as markers of embarrassment, which he could then act out in other ways (e.g. facial expression, gesture and movement).
Task D Who controls the topic?

Look carefully through the conversation, identifying the points where new topics are introduced into the conversation, what they are and who introduces them. What does this tell you about the interaction between Frank and Rita?
Our answer
Task D Our answer

Frank initiates the first topic in turn 1, asking Rita for her name. She disrupts this attempt, though, and he does not manage to close his topic. Then, in turn 8, Rita introduces the topic of the picture on Franks wall, which continues until turn 19, with Rita arguably introducing sub-topics related to the picture in turn 16 (pornography and eroticism). In turn 20 Rita changes the topic to the kind of students Frank teaches, and then asks about the Open University in turn 24. Then, when, in turn 25, Frank says why he is not really in a position to comment on the Open University, Rita introduces the topic of Franks financial situation. She also raises the topic of cigarettes by asking if she can smoke in turn 32, and discussion of this topic lasts until the end of the extract. Hence Rita effectively controls the topic of the conversation throughout, and the topics involved (pornography, eroticism, Franks finances) are not the sort of topics one would expect to be introduced on a first meeting by anyone, let alone by the least powerful interactant in social terms. This is in marked contrast to our schematic expectations for the tutorial activity type and, as with the factors we have seen in tasks B and C, contributes to the portrayal of Ritas unusually powerful personality and discourse style. Although the play is called Educating Rita, at the beginning, at least, it is Frank who appears to be being educated.
Task E What terms of address to the characters use to one another?

Apart from the pronoun you, what address terms do the characters use when addressing each other, and what does what you find tell us?
Our answer
Task E Our answer

None. They only use pronouns. This is unusual, as on a first meeting you would expect the characters to want to know each others names, and then to use them to help establish their social relations. Frank tries to ascertain Ritas name at the beginning, of course, but without success. They dont learn one anothers names until another three pages into the script. This helps to indicate how upside down their first meeting is.
Task F Speech Acts

(i) Who typically initiates in the various conversational exchanges, and who responds? (ii) What kinds of speech acts do Rita and Frank typically use? (iii) What do the answers to (i) and (ii) tell us about the exchange?
Task F Answers
Initiation/response Although Frank begins with two initiations, one in turn 1 and one in turn 5, Rita quickly becomes the initiator of most of the conversational exchanges and Frank merely responds to her initiations. Apart from turns 1 and 5, the only exceptions to this general rule are turn 31, his invitation for her to sit down, and turn 33, his request for clarification concerning what it is that she wants to smoke. This last item is, in any case, arguably a response to her request in turn 32. So the initiation/response data contrast with our schematic expectations and correspond with what the other forms of analysis have shown. Speech acts Given the situation, we would expect Frank to ask the questions and Rita to answer them. But Frank utters only 7 questions in the whole extract, three of which (Pardon? twice and tobacco?) are requests for clarification concerning something which Rita has just said. Rita, on the other hand, asks a total of 19 questions, only two of which can be said to be requests for clarification. There are other speech acts in addition to the questions and answers which dominate then extract. Rita contradicts Frank in turn 11, the first sentence of turn 14 and in turn 18, suggesting her confident personality. She asks for permission (to smoke) in 32, offers (Frank a cigarette) in 34 and promises (not to tell anyone if he smokes a cigarette) in turn 38. This variety of speech act
behaviour is at odds with the question-answering role that schematically we would expect her to perform. Frank mainly responds, apart from the questions we have already mentioned. He also contradicts Rita in 19 in defending his use of the word beautiful and invites (Rita to sit down in 31). These two speech acts, because they are usually used by the conversationally powerful, look as if they are attempts by Frank to regain some measure of control over the conversation, but of course he does not succeed, and overall Rita uses a richer array of speech acts than he does, suggesting that she is more at ease than he is.
Task G Politeness
Clearly we would expect two people meeting for the first time to be polite to one another. Are there any counter examples to this schematic assumption in the extract?
Task G Our answer

Frank does act politely throughout, in line with our schematic expectations. But Rita, although not downright rude, does act in various impolite ways: 1. She systematically disrupts Franks attempts to find out her name in turns 1-6, thus being negatively impolite (interfering with his conversational goals). 2. All the things we have noticed in tasks B-E can also be seen as interfering with Franks conversational goals. 3. She introduces taboo topics (eroticism, pornography and how well-off Frank is). 4. She uses taboo words (tits in turn 11) and derogatory terms (degrees for dishwashers in turn 30). As with all the other things we have noticed, Ritas impolite behaviour is at odds with the schematic assumptions we have concerning how she should behave in the situation she is in.
Task H Summary
We have not exhausted the kinds of analysis we could have used on this extract. For example, we could have looked in detail at how Rita disrupts Frank in the first few turns, and how her presuppositions and expectations in sentences like Its sort of like Men Only isnt it (turn 16) and I dont suppose they would have done if it had been a proper university (turn 24). But what we have seen time and time again in this analysis is that Rita behaves consistently in way that goes against our schematic assumptions concerning someone in her position.
It is this large and systematic contrast with our expectations, involving so many aspects of her conversational behaviour that makes the dialogue at the beginning of Educating Rita both striking and amusing. It is not at all surprising that Frank cant cope with her, and that we feel sympathetic towards him in his plight, as well as laughing at the way Rita turns his world upside down. For the extract we have examined, at least, Educating Rita seems to be an ironic title for Willy Russells play.

In session B we will not learn any new analytical tools, but instead will use what we have discovered about shared knowledge and presuppositions in session A to help us understand something about how absurdist drama creates the kinds of effects it does. To do this we will look at an extract from Edward Albee's Zoo Story. Then, as a kind of round-up to the drama section of the course (and indeed the whole course) we will look at a complete absurdist text, a sketch by Harold Pinter called Applicant. In analysing Applicant we will examine the shared (and unshared!) assumptions involved, but also some other aspects of the sketch, using what we have learned about in other parts of the drama section of the course - turn-taking in particular.
Absurdist Drama
In this session we will look at a couple of examples from absurdist texts. Absurdist drama typically involves very big clashes between the audience and the characters on stage in terms of the assumptions they hold. It is a kind of deviation writ very large, as it were. The clash in assumptions between the world of the characters and the world of the audience is usually so dramatic that what we are presented with seems absurd hence the term absurdism. Big clashes in assumptions between characters and audience also turn up a lot in situation comedies, and so, not surprisingly, much absurdist drama has a comic element, as we will see in both of the examples we will consider in this session. Sometimes, though, the absurdism correlates with feelings of extreme threat. Next in this session we will look at an extract from the beginning of Zoo Story by the American playwright, Edward Albee. Then we will examine an early sketch by the British playwright Harold Pinter, who is well-known for his absurdist drama (though he has written plenty of non-absurdist plays too). The sketch is called Applicant. Because Applicant is the last text we will look at in the drama section of the course, we will also use it as an opportunity for a round-up analysis, looking at the sketch using all the different forms of analysis we have used in the drama section of the course
Zoo story
Task A - General Task B - Turn 1 Task C - Turn 3 Task D - Turns 4 and 5 Task E - Turns 7 and 9 Task F - Turn 15 Task G Concluding remarks
Zoo story
Task A General
Below is a passage from near the beginning of the play Zoo Story by Edward Albee . It was
first published in 1958. Peter is sitting on a park bench reading and Jerry, a total stranger, has struck up a conversation with him. The extract, from near the beginning of the play, comes after a couple of minutes of uneasy talk. In later tasks we will function on particular turns in the extract and the assumptions they involve. But first lets gather some general impressions about the extract as a whole. Read the text below, carefully thinking about the assumptions that each of the characters appear to hold. Focus particularly on those cases where there is a clash between our assumptions and those entertained by (one of) the characters. Which character seems most peculiar and why? After you have collected your thoughts, compare your initial impressions with ours. JERRY: PETER: JERRY: PETER: JERRY: PETER: JERRY: PETER: JERRY: PETER: JERRY: PETER: You have a TV, haven't you? Why yes, we have two; one for the children You're married! Why, certainly. It isn't a law, for God's sake. No ... no, of course not. And you have a wife. Yes! And you have children. Yes; two. Boys? No, girls ... both girls. (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12)
JERRY: PETER: JERRY: PETER:
But you wanted boys.
(13)
Well ... naturally, every man wants a son, but ... (14) But that's the way the cookie crumbles? I wasn't going to say that. Our answer (15) (16)
Our answer
First of all, Jerry seems rather forward for someone who has only just met the person he is talking to, asking questions about rather personal topic areas. Secondly, he seems to make a point of spelling out things which Jerry (and we??) probably assumes too. The result is that Jerry seems rather odd and Peter appears to find his behaviour rather threatening. Indeed, Jerrys assumptions and behaviour seem so at odds with what we normally expect that you might even have wondered if he has escaped from a mental asylum.
Task B Turn 1
Given that the two characters have only just met, what is odd about Jerrys utterance in turn 1? Note: You will find a link to enable you to refer to the passage under the 'useful links' section of the menu on the left. JERRY: You have a TV, haven't you? (1)
Task B Our answer

Jerrys utterance (You have a TV, haven't you?) is a reversed polarity tag question (a positive statement-like form followed by a negative question form tagged on to it). This suggests that he is assuming that what he says in the statement-like part is almost certainly true, and that in the tag question he is merely requesting confirmation of the assumption behind his statement. Compare Jerrys utterance with the more straightforward question Do you have a TV?, for example. These days almost everyone in the USA will have a television (or more than one), and so Jerrys utterance will probably seem odd because it breaks Grices maxim of quantity, checking up on a statement that would be true for just about everyone. At the time the play was written televisions would have been reasonably common, but not so common as now, and so, if anything, it would have appeared that Jerry was assuming too much. Whether you react to the tag question with 1958 assumptions or more modern assumptions Jerrys utterance is odd, and it is also difficult to work out whether it is intended as a violation or a flout of the Gricean quantity maxim, making it difficult to work out exactly what Jerry is getting at, and why. This begins to explain why Jerry
seems odd and a bit threatening. In politeness terms he is invading Peters personal space, if the 1958 assumptions are in place. He appears to know more about Peter than he should.
Task C Turn 3
When Jerry says Youre married!, how does he know?
Task C Our answer

Peter has just said that he has two children, and at the time the play was written there would have been a pretty good correlation between having children and being married. So the schematic assumption is obvious enough. Indeed, even today, when many more children are born out of wedlock and many more couples with children are getting divorced, the traditional schematic assumption will probably still be held by many people.
Task D Turns 4 and 5

Why does Peter say Why certainly? And what is odd about Jerrys response (It isnt a law for Gods sake.)
Task D Our answer

Peter clearly has the traditional schematic assumptions concerning children and marriage. So we may well begin to assume that he has a fairly traditional set of attitudes. So far, from the evidence of turn 3, it appears that Jerry has the same schematic assumptions too. Indeed the exclamation mark at the end of his utterance in turn 3 suggests that he is pleased that Peter is married (and Peter has effectively confirmed Jerrys assumption in turn 4). But what Jerry says in turn 5 appears to contradict the schematic assumption that he held in turn 3. This lack of consistency in Jerrys apparent assumptions from turn to turn is clearly absurd and unsettling, both for Peter and the audience.
Task E Turns 7 and 9

What is odd about Jerrys utterances in turns 7 and 9? JERRY: And you have a wife. PETER: Yes! (7) (8)
JERRY: And you have children. (9)
Task E Our answer

What we know about deductive logic means that once we know Peter is male and married (which he has confirmed in turn 4) it follows with absolute certainty that he has a wife. Jerrys utterance in
turn 7 thus seems absurd because it spells out unnecessarily something that must be logically true. This absurd conversational behaviour is clearly unsettling. It is unclear whether Grices maxim of quantity is being flouted or violated, and so it is difficult to work out exactly what Jerrys intentions are in saying what he says. In turn 9 Jerry also makes a point of spelling out something everyone already knows. Peter has referred to his children in turn 2, and so when Jerry says And you have children. he is breaking Grices maxim of quantity. As with turn 7, the effect is unsettling because it is difficult to know whether to construe Jerrys contribution as a violation or a flout of the Gricean maxim. Does Jerry lack short-term memory and so have some sort of Alzheimers-like processing problem, or is he trying to implicate something we (and Peter) cant work out? This inability to work out the intended significance of utterances is typical of some absurdist drama.
Task F Turn 15
Why do you think Jerrys contribution in turn 15 upsets Peter? JERRY: PETER: But that's the way the cookie crumbles? (15) I wasn't going to say that.
Task F Our answer

In turns 11-15 Jerry trespasses even further into Peters private space than he has done earlier in the extract by asking rather personal questions about his attitude to the gender of his children. In turn 15 Jerry is stating the rather obvious point (in 1958 for certain, though perhaps a little less clearly these days) that people cant normally choose the gender of their children at the moment the baby is conceived. But he seems to say it in a very offhand way when he uses the expression thats the way the cookie crumbles. This idiomatic metaphor is usually used in comments on relatively trivial, even humorous matters, and so it seems that Jerry is not treating Peters feelings seriously enough because he is choosing an inappropriate style (cf. what we noticed about style and style variation in Topic
Task G Concluding remarks

We can see that Jerrys conversational behaviour in this extract is peculiar and difficult to interpret. And so it is very unsettling, both for Peter and for us. Most of the things we have seen relate in some way to clashes between Jerry and us concerning the way that he makes use of schematic assumptions. He appears to need to spell out assumptions that we would not expect to spell out, and can apparently change assumptions dramatically from turn to turn. His use of style is also sometimes inappropriate. It is thus not surprising that Peter seems unsettled in the conversation and we find it difficult to interpret Jerrys behaviour satisfactorily. This unsettling effect related to character assumptions and how they are used is one of the hallmarks of absurdist drama.
Note also how there is a bit of an issue in this extract concerning which schematic assumptions we take along to the text (see our discussion of Tasks B and C, for example). Should we operate with the assumptions that were in place at the time the play was written, or the ones we currently hold? Traditional literary criticism took the former line, suggesting that to use knowledge not available at the time a text was written was anachronistic and could lead to mistaken understandings (i.e. it would be rather like assuming that the word gay in a text by Shakespeare could mean homosexual, even though that meaning for the word did not arise until the 20th century). Some modern critics believe that it is reasonable for the reader to take along more modern assumptions as they merely lead to different understandings, not a false ones. We are with the traditionalists on this one, even though it is harder work (you have to research assumptions and the meanings of words in former times or other cultures if the text concerned does not come from your culture cf. texts written in English by Africans or Indians, for example). But you need to work out for yourself where you stand on this debate
Getting to know Applicant

Below you will find (a) a video-clip of a student performance and (b) the script of an early sketch by Harold Pinter reference. After you have familiarised yourself with the sketch, write down your first impressions of it, what the characters are like, what happens and why, and then compare your comments with ours. called Applicant. It is convenient to look at this short sketch because it is a short
complete text, as well as being absurdist. We have numbered the turns in the script for ease of
View 'The Applicant' video clip
An office. LAMB, a young man, eager, cheerful, enthusiastic, is striding nervously, alone. The door opens. MISS PIFFS come in. She is the essence of efficiency. 1. Piffs 2. Lamb 3. Piffs 4. Lamb 5. Piffs Ah, good morning. Oh, good morning miss. Are you Mr. Lamb? That's right. (studying a piece of paper) Yes, you're applying for this vacant post, aren't you?
6. Lamb 7. Piffs 8. Lamb 9. Piffs
I am actually, yes. Are you a physicist? Oh yes, indeed. It's my whole life. (languidly) Good. Now our procedure is, that before we discuss the applicant's qualifications we like to subject him to a little test to determine his psychological suitability. You've no objection?
10. Lamb 11. Piffs
Oh, good heavens, no. Jolly good.
MISS PIFFS has taken some objects out of a drawer and goes to LAMB. She places a chair for him. 12. Piffs 13. Lamb 14. Piffs 15. Lamb Please sit down. (He sits) Can I fit these to your palms? (affably) What are they? Electrodes. Oh yes, of course. Funny little things.
She attaches them to his palms. 16. Piffs Now the earphones.
She attaches earphones to his head. 17. Lamb 18. Piffs I say how amusing. Now I plug in.
She plugs in to the wall. 19. Lamb (a trifle nervously) Plug in, do you? Oh yes. of course. Yes, you'd have to, wouldn't you? MISS PIFFS perches on a high stool and looks down on LAMB. This help to determine my . . . my suitability does it? 20. Piffs Unquestionably. Now relax. Just relax. Don't think about a thing. 21. Lamb 22. Piffs No. Relax completely. Rela-a-a-x. Quite relaxed?
LAMB nods. MISS PIFFS presses a button on the side of her stool. A piercing high?pitched buzz?hum is heard. LAMB jolts rigid. His hands go to his earphones. He is propelled from the chair. He tries to crawl under the chair. MISS PIFFS watches, impassive. 'The noise stops. LAMB peeps out from under the chair, crawls out, stands, twitches, emits a short chuckle and collapses in the chair.
23. Piffs 24. Lamb 25. Piffs 26. Lamb
Would you say you were an excitable person? Not - not unduly, no. Of course, I Would you say you were a moody person? Moody? No, I wouldn't say I was moody - well sometimes occasionally I
27.Piffs 28. Lamb 29. Piffs 30. Lamb
Do you ever get fits of depression? Well, I wouldn't call them depression exactly Do you often do things you regret in the morning? Regret? Things I regret? Well, it depends what you mean by often, really - I mean when you say often
Are you often puzzled by women? Women? Men. Men? Well, I was just going to answer the question about women
35. Piffs 36. Lamb 37. Piffs 38. Lamb 39. Piffs 40. Lamb
Do you often feel puzzled? Puzzled? By women. Women? Men. Oh, now just a minute, I Look, do you want separate answers or a joint answer?
41. Piffs
After your day's work do you ever feel tired? Edgy? Fretty? Irritable? At a loose end? Morose? Frustrated? Morbid? Unable to concentrate? Unable to sleep? Unable to eat? Unable to remain seated? Unable to remain upright? Lustful? Indolent? On heat? Randy? Full of desire? Full of energy? Full of dread? Drained? of energy, of dread? of desire?
Pause. 42. Lamb 43. Piffs 44. Lamb 45. Piffs 46. Lamb (thinking) Well, it's difficult to say really Are you a good mixer? Well, you've touched on quite an interesting point there Do you suffer from eczema, listlessness, or falling coat? Er
Are you virgo intacta? I beg your pardon? Are you virgo intacta? Oh, I say, that's rather embarrassing. I mean - in front of a lady
51. Piffs 52. Lamb 53. Piffs 54. Lamb 55. Piffs 56. Lamb 57. Piffs
Are you virgo intacta? Yes, I am, actually. I'll make no secret of it. Have you always been virgo intacta? Oh yes, always. Always. From the word go? Go? Oh yes, from the word go. Do women frighten you?
She presses a button on the other side of her stool. The stage is plunged into redness, which flashes on and off in time with her questions. 58. Piffs (building) Their clothes? Their shoes? Their voices? Their laughter? Their stares? Their way of walking? Their way of sitting? Their way of smiling? Their way of talking? Their mouths? Their hands? Their feet? Their shins? Their thighs? Their knees? Their eyes? Their (Drumbeat). Their (Drumbeat). Their (Cymbal bang). Their (Trombone chord). Their (Bass note). 59. Lamb (in a high voice) Well it depends what you mean really
The light still flashes. She presses the other button and the piercing buzz?hum is heard again. LAMB's hands go to his earphones. He is propelled from the chair, falls, rolls, crawls, totters and collapses. Silence. He lies face upwards. MISS PIFFS looks at him then walks to LAMB and bends over him. 60. Piffs Thank you very much, Mr. Lamb. We'll let you know.
Our comments
The sketch begins as if it were an interview, but quickly degenerates into something more like a psychological experiment and then a torture and interrogation session. Then, at the very end the situation is suddenly changed back to interview mode. The changes are all instigated by Miss Piffs, who seems to need to dominate the interviewee, Mr Lamb, throughout. She doesnt seem at all interested in finding out Mr Lambs views or what he can do, but effectively humiliates and tortures
him. Much of what she talks about after the first part of the sketch has to do with women or male/female relations. So the sketch looks like an early absurdist take on gender relations, where male and female roles are dramatically reversed. Some of the questions Miss Piffs asks are also rather strange, and will need to be explored to see why they are absurd.
Assumptions in Applicant
In this section we are first going to look at schematic assumptions in helping to characterise the different phases of the sketch. Then we will go on to look at the presuppositions behind some particular sentences which are rather odd. We will use these forms of analysis to help explain why the sketch is absurd. Note: You will find a link to enable you to refer to the passage under the 'useful links' section of the menu on the left.
Task A - Turns 1-11 Task B - Turns 12-22 and the stage direction following turn 22 Task C - Turns 23-59 and the stage direction following turn 59 Task D - Turn 60 Task E - Turn 45 Task F - Turns 47-54
Task A Turns 1-11

Using your schematic knowledge, what kind of situation is being set up in turns 1-11? How do the stage directions and what is said by the characters help you to decide what schema to apply to the scene?
Task A Our answer

An interview situation is rapidly established. Miss Piffs asks the questions and so is the interviewer. She also appears to have Lambs application form (see the stage direction in turn 5), and assumes in turn 5 (cf. the reversed polarity tag question) that he is applying for this vacant post. It coincides with the interview schema that Miss Piffs is confident and efficient and Mr Lamb is nervous. He also seems a little naive (cf. the extra Its my whole life comment in turn 8 in addition to his answer to Piffs question. They are both polite to one another, as we would expect in an interview situation.
They greet one another in turns 1 and 2, and their terms of address for one another Mr. Lamb and miss are conventionally polite. All of these features are consistent with an interview schema.
Task B Turns 12-22 and the stage direction following turn 22

How does the situation change in turns 12-22? What situation schema now seems appropriate? What evidence is there for your conclusions
Task B Our answer

Our schema for interviews is that once the polite initial formalities have been dispensed with the interviewer should ask questions to allow the interviewee to demonstrate his or her suitability for the post concerned. But instead, after gaining agreement in a polite way, Miss Piffs starts doing things physically to Mr.Lamb, fitting electrodes to him etc. It is just about conceivable that jobselection procedures might involve some sort of testing in addition to the interview, but fitting him up with electrodes looks more consistent with a lie-detector test, some sort of psychological test, or even a doctor-patient consultation than an interview. In speech act terms, she also orders him to relax in turn 22, which is consistent with the alternative schemata we have just mentioned. It is important to note that all of these alternative schemata, all involve two people, one of whom is in charge and one of whom is in a clearly inferior position. In other words, Pinter can move us from the interview schema to another (any of the above would do) because they share some structural properties, even though they are different from one another. The stage direction after turn 22 indicates a much more radical change. The psychological equipment turns out to be an instrument of torture, as the stage directions make very clear. This change clearly moves us into the area of the absurd. Even if we accepted the idea that Miss Piffs, as interviewer, might submit Lamb to physical/psychological tests, torturing the interviewee, it is dramatically inconsistent with our interview schemata.
Task C Turns 23-59 and the stage direction following turn 59

What situation schema seems most appropriate for this part of the sketch? What evidence is there for your conclusions?
Task C Our answer

We now seem to move into some sort of hectoring interrogation, where Mr. Lamb is often not given a proper chance to answer the questions posed by Miss Piffs. This distances us further from the interview schema, as we expect interviewees to be given extended turns so that they can demonstrate their suitability for the post they have applied for. Interrogations, like interviews, psychological tests etc., also involve two people with an asymmetrical power relationship. But now the power asymmetry becomes much more marked. The torture which occurs just before turn 23 is consistent with our schemata for extreme interrogations, as is the rapid questioning and dramatic changes in topic. The topics of the questions seem entirely inappropriate for interrogation sequences, however. This introduces another element of absurdity. It is not just that the situation seems to have changed dramatically. It is also the case that the new situation doesnt seem to be quite right either.
Task D Turn 60
In the final turn of the sketch Miss Piffs says Thank you very much, Mr. Lamb. Well let you know. What situation schema seems most appropriate for this part of the sketch? What evidence is there for your conclusions, and what is the effect of this schema change?
Task D Our answer

At the very end of the sketch, after Lamb is apparently rendered unconscious by Miss Piffs appalling torture, we suddenly, and absurdly, revert to the initial interview schema. Miss Piffs last utterance thanks him politely and uses the formal title + surname direct address term consistent with our polite interview schemata, and repeating the form she used for Lamb in turn 3 of the sketch. The final sentence Well let you know is the kind of sentence that interviews often end on, as the interviewer will want to reflect on the various candidates before making up his or her mind about who to appoint.
Task E Turn 45
What unusual presupposition seems to be behind (part of) turn 45, and how can it be connected to turn 41? Why is this presupposition absurd?
Task E Our answer

In an interview or an interrogation session it seems pretty odd to be asking whether someone has eczema, a skin condition. But this oddity does not seem that much different from lots of other
questions Miss Piffs asks whether the interviewee is a moody person, puzzled by women, and so on. However, asking someone whether they have falling coat is a different order of oddity altogether. Human beings can have falling hair, but falling coat is a term normally applied to animals with hair coats, like cats and dogs. Hence if you ask someone if they have falling coat you appear to be presupposing that the person is an animal, not a human being. It is arguable that suffer from . . . listlessness is similar. Human beings can be listless, and can suffer from various medical conditions (e.g. migraine) but we are usually talking about animals (or perhaps small babies, who cant yet talk) when we say that something suffers from listlessness. The presuppositional oddity we have seen with falling coat and possibly suffer from . . . listlessness in turn 45 is connectable to the question On heat? in turn 41. Female animals that are ready to conceive if fertilised are usually said to be on heat. But on heat can also be used metaphorically in some informal contexts (usually in the speech of young adults) to refer to a human being who is looking for sexual activity, so the connection between turns 41 and 45 is not certain. That said, the presuppositional absurdity of falling coat does seem pretty certain, so now we can see that the absurdity in the sketch dois not just relate to schematic assumptions but also to presuppositions in particular sentences.
Task F Turns 47-54

How is this sequence presuppositionally absurd?
Task F Our answer

To ask whether someone is a virgin or not is something which prototypically applies to females, although it has been extended to males in the 20th century in particular. But to use the Latin expression virgo intacta seems to tie the question in turn 47 pretty firmly to females (it relates to whether or not the vaginal hymen is intact), and so for Miss Piffs to ask this question of a young man is very strange indeed. It seems to presuppose that he is female or has female genitalia. That said, the question does not appear to be absurd to Mr. Lamb, but merely embarrassing. So, as with falling coat there is a big presuppositional clash between (a) the world of the two characters together and (b) the world of the audience. When Miss Piffs asks have you always been virgo intacta? in turn 53, she is being presuppositionally absurd in a different way. It is part of the definition of being a virgin that you must always have been a virgin. You cant switch virginity on and off like a light. So the question is presuppositionally absurd (even though Mr. Lamb answers it affirmatively!). This absurd presuppositional clash between the world of the characters and the world of the audience is then made even more peculiar through the stylistically inappropriate phrasing of from the word go, which is a metaphor derived from athletics that is usually used in informal contexts.
Turn-taking in Applicant
On this page we are first going to look at the turn-taking patterns in Applicant, and what they tell us about the two characters and their relationship. We will also use politeness analysis and Gricean implicature, where appropriate, to explain particular effects. However, to keep your tasks on Applicant to a reasonable size we will not undertake fully-fledged analyses of politeness or implicature. Note: You will find a link to enable you to refer to the passage under the 'useful links' section of the menu on the left.
Task A Turn numbers Task B - Turn size Task C - Interruptions Task D - Initiations, responses and topic control Task E -Turns 41 and 58
Turn-taking in Applicant
Task A Turn numbers
Count the number of turns used by Lamb and by Piffs, and work out the reasons for the difference between the two characters
Task A Our answer

Lamb has 28 turns and Piffs has 32. Given that there are only two people, we would expect the number of turns to be equal, or for one of the characters to have one more turn if that character speaks both first and last in the text. The latter does happen, and so explains one part of the discrepancy. The rest of the difference is related to the interaction between the turns and stage business in particular, extended actions indicated by the stage directions. So, Piffs has both of turns 11 and 12, which are separated by her getting her equipment out of the drawer and placing a chair for Lamb. Similarly, Piffs has (a) both of turns 22 and 23, on either side of the business involving Lamb being electrically shocked, and (b) both of turns 57 and 58, on either side of her plunging the stage into redness. The fact that Miss Piffs has more turns than Mr Lamb is the first indication, in turn-taking terms, of her dominance over him.
Task B Turn size

Now count the number of graphological words (words separated graphologically by spaces) used by Lamb and by Piffs, calculate the turn-average for each character and comment on the difference between the two characters
Task B Our answer

Character Lamb Piffs Turns 28 32 Words 196 283 Average 7 8.84
The difference between an average of 7 and 8.84 words per turn may not seem a lot at first sight, but in proportional terms it represents an increase in Piffs speech compared with Lambs of roughly 25%. Indeed, if we just look at the total number of words for each character (thus ignoring the difference in the number of turns between the two characters) the increase is even greater around 45%. Whichever measure we use here, we have another turn-taking indicator of the dominance of Piffs over Lamb in the conversation.
Task C Interruptions
How many interruptions are there in the sketch, and who interrupts who?
Task C Our answer

Lamb never interrupts Piffs, but Piffs interrupts Lamb seven times, in the following turncombinations: 24/5; 28/9; 30/31; 34/5; 44/5; 50/51; 59/stage action The interruptions are signalled by turn-final and incomplete grammatical structures. In addition to the above interruptions, there are two more ambiguous cases (turns 42 and 46), where . . . at the end of a turn by Lamb suggests that he trails off into silence, which Piffs then fills. Whether the interruption count is 0 vs. 7 or 0 vs. 9, it is clear that the pattern of interruptions confirms the dominance of Piffs over Lamb which we have seen in Tasks A and B.
Task D Initiations, responses and topic control

Looking at the script as a whole, decide (a) who initiates and who responds in the various conversational exchanges, and (b) who controls the topics that are explored. How would you explain any deviations from the general pattern you discern?
Task D Our answer

In general terms, Piffs speaks first and Lamb second in the majority of exchanges. In turns 1-10, for example, Piffs produces the first greeting and Lamb the matching response greeting, and then Piffs asks a series of five questions which Lamb then answers. Lamb does ask a few questions in turns 12-20, but he is still acceding to Piffs general conversational drift. In 23-59 Lamb again mainly responds to the questions Piffs poses. As he becomes more puzzled by the questions he has to resort to echo questions (see turns 30-38) in order to try to understand the questions being asked well enough to be able to answer them. But nonetheless, he is still occupying the responding conversational position rather than the initiating one. There are one or two places where the worm does at least attempt to turn. For example in turns 40 and 44 Lamb appears to try to take the initiative and exert some control over the conversation. But Piffs ruthlessly regains control in every case. Not surprisingly, because Piffs produces most of the inititations she also controls the topic of talk throughout. Indeed, she changes the topic very rapidly from turn 23 onwards, when the interrogation sequence starts. The fact that she controls the conversation so ruthlessly, both in terms of topic and initiation-response structure is another clear indication of her extreme dominance over Lamb. From turn 31 onwards, Piffs questions are almost all related to sexual matters, and mainly to Lambs attitude towards women. This suggests, via Grices maxim of relation, that Piffs is exerting her extreme dominance over Lamb for gender-related reasons she wants to exert control over the opposite sex, of which Lamb is the rather pusillanimous representative
Task E Turns 41 and 58

What is odd in turn-taking terms about turns 41 and 58?
Task E Our answer

These are the two longest turns in the sketch, by far, foregrounding them. After the rapid question-and-answer phase of turns 23-39, Lamb tries to exert some conversational control in 40). Piffs immediately slaps Lamb down in turn 41 by asking a string of 24 questions without giving him the chance to answer any of them. As the turn unfolds, the questions become more and more elliptical. This pattern is highly deviant (and so foregrounded) in adjacency-pair turn-taking terms, and we can infer from it, via Grices maxim of relation, that Piffs has no real interest in Lambs answers. The questions are all about how Lamb feels, and are often sexual in nature. Turn 58 exhibits a similar foregrounded pattern. This time there are 21 questions without the chance for Lamb to answer. All the questions are elliptical, depending on the question in turn 57 for
their interpretation, and they are all about women. The implicature (parallel to the one in turn 41) that Piffs has no real interest in Lambs answers to her questions is reinforced by the fact that her last five questions in this turn have no real content. Throughout the turn, Piffs questions are typically noun phrases with the structure their + head noun. But in the last five questions the head nouns are replaced by noises. If we now look at the turn-taking structure overall, we can see that all of the five areas we have examined in Tasks A-E indicate Piffs conversational control over Lamb. In Tasks D and E we have also begun to see how pragmatic interpretation of some of the turn-taking phenomena we have noticed lead us to infer that the reason for Piffs extreme behaviour is probably to make a rather clear point about male/female relations.
Topic Summary
In this topic we have learned about how we bring along shared knowledge about situations, people and so on to texts in the form of 'pre-packaged' schemata. We have also seen how writers can use the schematic knowledge we and they share to create meanings and effects in texts including absurdist effects when the assumptions of characters are markedly at odds with our own assumptions. We have also seen that individual utterances and sentences can involve specific assumptions in the form of presuppositions, and that these can also be manipulated to create a range of effects, including absurdity. When assumptions in texts clash with the assumptions we hold, the deviation involved creates the effect of foregrounding and as this topic is the final topic on the course, we can use this fact to help us to notice something very important about the different aspects of analysis we have noticed in the course: WHEN WE HAVE INTRODUCED PARTICULAR KINDS OF ANALYSIS (E.G. TURNTAKING WHEN LOOKING AT DRAMA) WE HAVE CHOSEN THE GENRE WHICH THE MODE OF ANALYSIS WORKS ON BEST OF ALL BUT IT IS IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER THAT ALL THE FORMS OF ANALYSIS WILL BE APPLICABLE TO A PARTICULAR TEXT TO SOME DEGREE FOR EXAMPLE PROSE AND DRAMA TEXTS CAN MAKE CREATIVE USE OF SEMANTIC AND GRAPHOLOGICAL DEVIATION POETRY AND DRAMA TEXTS CAN ALSO USE VIEWPOINT MANIPULATION CREATIVELY
AND POETRY AND PROSE TEXTS CAN MAKE CREATIVE USE OF TURN-TAKING AND INFERENTIAL EFFECTS. SO THE MOTTO FOR THE COURSE IS: IN STYLISTIC ANALYSIS EVERYTHING YOU HAVE LEARNED IS POTENTIALLY USEFUL WHEN ANALYSING ANY TEXT.
We would be grateful if you could fill in the Topic Feedback Form before starting the next topic.
Glossary of Terms
A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z
Please note, once you've read the glossary definition, click the underlined word to close this window
~A~
Active Describes relation of subject and object and the action expressed by the verb. In an active clause or sentence the grammatical subject is typically in the role of agent, in relation to the verb, and the object is in the role of affected participant. Affix A type of bound morpheme that can be added to a word to create a new word. An affix may be added to the front (prefix), end (suffix), or middle (infix) of a word, and may effect a change in word class. Alliteration The repetition of the initial consonant in two or more words. e.g. Mick mutilated mice in his madness. The term may also be applied to similar sounding consonants e.g. cot/got - known as loose alliteration. Alveolar = Sound formed by passage of air through the vocal tract when the tongue is pressed on the alveolar ridge (behind the upper teeth). Apposition = Apposition is a grammatical relationship between two adjacent noun phrases which refer to the same person or thing, but in different ways, e.g. my wife, the woman I love. The first noun phrase indicates the family relationship between the speaker and the person he is referring to, whereas the second, appositional ,phrase, indicates a different attribute, namely the emotional relationship between the speaker and the person referred to.
Approximants aka Frictionless continuants. Sounds produced by bringing the articulators close together while at the same time leaving enough gap for the air to escape without producing audible friction. Two types in English: glides - [w], [ j ] and liquids - [l] and [r]. Assonance A bit like alliteration for vowel sounds, the stressed vowel is repeated in 2 or more words e.g. lean mean fighting machine. Auxiliary Refers to a set of verbs, which can occur alongside the main lexical verb, that help to make distinctions in mood, aspect or voice. In English the main ones are 'do', 'be' and 'have'. Also modal auxiliaries, which include 'can', 'may', 'should' .
~B~
Bound Used in classification of morphemes - a bound morpheme is one which cannot occur on its own as a separate word, e.g. affixes: de~, ~tion, etc.
~C~
Clauses Sometimes defined in terms of size: smaller than sentences, but bigger than phrases. In terms of structural features clauses, unlike phrases, normally consist of a subject and a predicate. Similarly, sentences also contain a subject and a predicate, but they can consist of just one clause (simple sentence) or more than one clause (multiple or compound sentence). Closed class words Words that belong to a class whose membership is fixed or limited. These words are sometimes called grammatical or function words and are used to link open class words in a meaningful way. These words are much fewer in number than open class words and include pronouns, prepositions and articles. Collocates Conceit Started to be used in 16th century to mean a 'popular figure of speech' in Elizabethan poetry - examples of conceit forms are simile, metaphor, hyperbole, oxymoron Consonants Sounds made by partially or totally obstructing the vocal tract so that audible friction is produced. e.g. the sounds produced by 'sh' and 't' in shut. Also used to describe the graphemes representing such sounds in written language, however note that this does not always work. e.g. 'k'
in kick and 'c' in caress are graphologically different, but phonetically the same consonant. Continuous aspect Sometimes also referred to as progressive aspect. It is constructed by using 'BE' with the '-ING' form of the main verb and is used to express an event in progress at a given time. That is to say the activity happens over a limited period of time and may not be complete. Compare: I ate a pie yesterday. (pie all eaten up) I was eating a pie yesterday. (partially eaten pie) Count noun Refer to individual countable things. Count nouns can be pluralized, and can occur in the singular with 'a'. Compare with noncount or mass nouns. Eg. tree vs foliage - you can have a tree, but not a foliage; you can have trees but not foliages.
~D~
Deictic = Deictics are words which relate the objects and locations mentioned by a speaker to that speakers physical location. They often occur in contrasting pairs, indicating that the objects concerned are close to (proximal ) or remote from (distal ) the speaker. Hence these chairs are chairs close to the speaker (proximal), and those chairs are chairs further away from the speaker (distal),. Here is proximal, there is distal. Deixis can apply metaphorically to other things which can be seen as speaker-related (cf. now vs. then). Deviation Breaking a set of rules or expectations. This course is particularly interested in linguistic deviation. Dipthongs Vowel sounds in which there is a change in quality. The vocal tract shifts from one vowel position to a second without a consonant or pause in between e.g. 'oy' in boy. Movement between three is a triphthong and so on. Direct speech One of the commonest methods of the representation of speech in writing, especially fiction. Represents the actual words a person says/said without any modification. Discourse A body of language comprising of a number of related sentences. Some people only apply the term to spoken language while others include written texts. Domain Scope or field of influence
~E~
Echo In conversation people sometimes echo (part of) what someone else has said in order to check it or query it. So, if A says I need a cup of tea. And B responds with A cup of tea? we will understand the echo question as a contextually relevant checking or querying of the content of the echo question. For example, if there was lots of background noise when A was speaking, the question could be a check that B heard A correctly. Or if it is known that A does not like tea it could be interpreted as an indication of surprise by B. Elegant Variation Also known as expolitio or exergasia. The repetition of the same thought using different words, used for emphasis or to avoid plainness. Duplication of identical ideas utilising alternative lexical expression in order to highlight or elaborate text. Usually more elegantly than that, though. Ellegard norm Normal frequency of various word classes in written English according to Ellegard (1978), using the Brown corpus of American English. Elliptical sentence Ellipsis - from the Greek 'leaving out'. a.k.a. reduced or contracted constructions. A sentence that has part of the grammatical structure omitted, but is still readily understood. eg. 'Pie?' in the right situation and context could be understood to mean, 'Would you like some pie?' Enactment Where language reflects the meaning it expresses. i.e. form mirrors content. This could be achieved by variations in phonetic, rhythmic and clause structures. For example, onomatopoeia or sound symbolism could be seen as a type of enactment.
~F~
Finite Finite verb forms express contrasts in tense, number and person e.g. Tense: She plays the piano. She played the piano Number & person: 1 piano. 2 pianos. She plays. They play A finite clause is a clause involving a finite verb phrase. Compare nonfinite Focaliser Used in the study of perspective or point of view. To do with the ways in which the story is focussed : physical perception (close, distant, panoramic); cognitive orientation (knowledge of the world described); emotive orientation (subjective/objective). Often the narrator is the focaliser.
An omniscient narrator is usually provides an external, objective view. First person narrators often provide internal focalization; their, typically subjective, view of events. Foregrounding A psychological effect whereby one part of a text becomes more prominent, sometimes created by deviation from the linguistic norm and sometimes by the repetition of linguistic patterns. Fricatives In phonetics a type of consonant created by turbulence caused by narrowing (but not closure) of the vocal tract while air is passed through it. Functional conversion A change of word class without the presence of an affix e.g. I am writing a book (noun) / I want to book (verb) a seat.
~G~
Gradable adjective An adjective that can be modified to indicate a level of the feature it describes e.g. tall, taller, tallest, rather tall extremely tall etc. Graphology The study of the distinctive units (graphemes) that make up written language i.e. letters punctuation etc. It is analogous to phonology, the study of sound units in language. Not to be confused with the study of handwriting to determine personality, which is also called graphology.
~H~
Head word In grammar, the word in a phrase ( verb phrase, noun phrase etc) which is grammatically and lexically most important. Other words in the phrase relate to, or modify the head word. Hyperbole From Greek 'exceed'. Exaggeration or overstatement often used for emphasis.
~I~
Intertextuality Relations between one text (written or spoken) and another. The author making reference to an older text in order to evoke its meaning, or perhaps parody it. Note that potentially the reader may come across the texts in a different order, potentially creating a different effect than that intended by the author. Intransitive predicators Intransitive verbs Verbs that can be used without a direct object. Verbs like come and go and die do not need objects. Contrast verbs like 'make' and 'catch', which are transitive. Some verbs can function both intransitively and transitively, eg. reading.
~J~ ~K~ ~L~

Lexis From the Greek for word and used to refer to vocabulary or lexicon. A single word is termed a lexeme or a lexical item, however note the grammatical variations of a word are not different lexemes i.e. cry, cries crying are all forms of the same lexeme. Words of similar context and meaning may be grouped into lexical sets. Linking predicators
~M~
Mass noun Opposed to count noun. Also called noncount nouns. Refers to an undifferentiated mass or notion, such as 'information'. Mass nouns can stand alone in the singular, do not allow plurals, do not occur with 'a' or 'an'. Medium The precise method and/or materials used to convey discourse. For example: written language may use the medium of books, email, graffiti etc; spoken language may use the medium of the telephone, or public announcement etc. Metaphor From Greek: carry over. Describing subject 'X' (Tenor) in terms of 'Y' (vehicle) on the
basis of some similarity (ground) between X and Y. Metonymic Metonymy - from greek 'name change' a rhetorical figure or trope by which the name of a referent is replaced by the name of an attribute, or of an entity related in some semantic way. Mimicry Morpheme Morphemes are the basic meaning-building-blocks for words. The most simple words have just one morpheme (e.g. 'book'). Because it can stand freely on its own as a word, book is an example of a free morpheme. A word like handbook consists of two free morphemes, hand and book, combined together to make one word. The word bookish also consists of two morphemes, book and -ish, but -ish cant stand on its own as a word and so is a bound morpheme. Note that some bound morphemes can standardly have more than one phonemic realisation. So the plural morpheme has 4 possible phonemic realisations in English, /s/ (as in cats /kats/), /z/ (as in dogs /dogz/), /iz/ (as in horses /hosiz) and /en/ as in oxen /oksen/). From this we can also see that morphemes, which are the building blocks for words, themselves have phonemes (distinctive sounds) as their building blocks.
~N ~
Neologism A neologism is a new word invented by the author Nominalization Nonce word A neologism that is used once, i.e. not outside its original text Non-gradable adjective The opposite of a gradable adjective- an adjective that cannot be modified to indicate level e.g. equal, dead. Normal non-fluency
~O~
Object complements The element of a clause that adds meaning to the object, traditionally associated with completing the action of the verb. An object complement usually follows the direct object. e.g. 'she made me angry', where 'angry' is the complement, or 'She called me a fool', where 'a fool' is the complement. Onomatopoeia From Greek 'name making' the lexical process of creating words which actually sound like their referent, e.g. zoom, bang, buzz. Open class words Words that belong to a class that may be modified, compounded etc. to make new words. This type of word is by far the most common in English and includes nouns and verbs amongst others. Orthography A language's standard system of spelling. Deviation from orthography may be used to create effects such as dialect. Oxymoron From Greek 'sharp-dull'. The juxtaposition of contradictory expressions for witty or striking effects. None come to mind at the moment.
~P~
Parallelism Repetition of words or a pattern of grammar or sound to create an effect of equivalence or opposition. Parsing Describing the syntactic structure of a sentence, using elementary units such as morphemes, words, phrases, grammatical categories. Or comprehending a sentence by analysis of word meaning and order. This operation is carried put at the subconscious level. Computers have also been programmed to carry out parsing with some success. Passive Contrasting with active voice, the passive voice refers to sentence or clause structures where the subject is the recipient of the action of the verb. The 'thing' doing the action (if specified) is known as the agent. The passive verb is constructed by a form of the auxiliary verb 'be' followed by the '-ed' participle of the verb. eg. The pie was consumed (agentless passive) The pie was consumed by the boy (agentive passive) Compare with:
The boy consumed the pie (active) Persona A persona is the figure in a poem who appears to be speaking. A clear example would be Mr Prufrock in T.S. Eliot's poem 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'. Note that we cannot automatically assume that a more anonymous 'speaking voice' in a poem is the author. A persona in a poem is like a narrator in a novel, but is often not very clearly delineated. Phonemic Alphabet IPA (International Phonetic alphabet) based primarily on the Latin alphabet, with the addition of Greek, reversed, and new letters. Also includes diacritics to indicate, for instance, long vowels, nasalization, lip rounding, etc. Used for the written notation of spoken language. Phoneme The smallest sound unit in the sound system of a language that can be segmented from the acoustic flow of speech. Distinctive sounds that make up spoken words. Phonetic Of or relating to speech sound. Phonetics The study of speech sounds in language. Commonly divided into the study of; the production of speech sounds (articulatory phonetics), the physical properties and transmission of those sounds (acoustic phonetics), and their perception (auditory phonetics). Phonology Study of the pattern of speech sounds in a language, the grammatical rules that determine how phonemes may be linked to create meaning in a given language. Pragmatics Study of the production, understanding and function of language within context. This may be seen as a difference of perspective rather than level of analysis. Predicator In grammar a verb giving information about the subject of a sentence. The predicator may be transitive(requiring an object), intransitive or linking. The predicator expresses action, process or relationship in a sentence. Propositional Content
~Q~ ~R~
Reflector
Register Variety of language defined by situation. Formality or apropriatness depending on situation. Reported clause Reporting clause Special clause used to report someone's speech, eg. 'He said, She wrote, They shouted. Can sometimes add extra information about the speech. The accompanying speech or writing is given in the reported clause. Reporting discourse Reregistration Register borrowing Rhyme Repetition of the same phoneme or group of phonemes e.g. soul/coal. Similar but not identical phonemes or groups of phonemes e.g. five/fife may be used to create what is termed half rhyme. It is also possible to create eye rhyme, a visual effect utilising associations formed by repetition of groups of graphemes e.g. the cough/through, this effect tends to be weaker than rhyme using sounds. Of course the two effects may be combined e.g. cough/rough. In English it is most common to rhyme words at the ends of lines in a poem or song. This is called end rhyme. It is also possible to rhyme words in other positions. This is called internal rhyme.
~S~
Schematic knowledge Based on schema theory in cognitive psychology - the idea that we have frequently updated frameworks within the mind, which we use to group and order information. These schemata give us information about how to act and what to expect in different situations. For example it is normal and expected to chat in a caf but not in a cinema. Thus we have expectations based upon previous experience and observation, which will colour our interpretation of texts. Semantic Deviation This describes relations that are logically inconsistent or paradoxical in some way. For example, it is normally assumed that any modifiers of a noun will be semantically compatible: 'The meat pie', or 'the crusty pie', but not 'the irritable pie'. This sort of deviation may prompt the reader to look beyond the dictionary definition of the words in order to interpret the text. Semantic Fields Theory about the way language is organized. Vocabulary exists in fields within which words interrelate . Semantics Major branch of linguistics devoted to the study of meaning in language. Includes
analysis of words, sentences and relations, such as antonymy and synonymy. Simile From Latin for Like. Compares X to Y using 'like' or 'as'. eg. She swims like a fish. Sound Symbolism Sound symbolism is what happens when we are able to interpret the sounds in words and phrases as being particularly meaningful. The most obvious example is onomatopoeia. Speech act An utterance that performs an action, such as an apology, or a complaint. Some may be context dependent, for example saying 'I sentence you to life imprisonment' if you are not a judge and you are not in a courtroom probably won't result in the desire action. Style Characteristic or distinctive language use, this may vary between genres, roles, authors and so on. Subject complements The element of a clause that adds meaning to the subject. A subject complement usually follows the subject and verb. The verb is most often a form of 'be', but may be one of several other verbs that are able to link the complement meaning with the subject meaning. These are copular or linking verbs. e.g. 'he is a baker', where 'a baker' is the complement. Suffix An addition to the end of a word that makes a new word (e.g. -ization). This may effect a change in word class, as when the adjective "happy" becomes the noun "happiness". Syllable Syntax The rules governing the way in which words are combined to form a sentence.
~T~
Tanka = A tanka is a five-line, 31-syllable poem that has historically been the basic form of Japanese poetry. Of all the poetic forms ever written by the Japanese, Tanka is clearly the most rigidly adhered to form in terms of structure. It is constructed by 5 lines or units which must contain an odd number of syllables (e.g. 1,3,5,7), ending in the traditional 7-7 onji pattern. Here's a novel way for you to remember the 31 syllable rule: (5) What is a Tanka? (7) Five syllables. Then Seven. (5) Then Five more. And then? (7) Add two "sevens" to finish.
(7) Quite simple when you know how! If you'd like to know the history of the tanka (as well as other traditional Japanese poetic forms), click the link to read an article by Ishikawa Takuboku. Tenor Relationship between participants in situation - roles and status - informal/formal everyday/scientific. Transitive verbs Verbs which require an object eg. I like pies Transitive predicators
~U~ ~V~
Viewpoint Voicing Creation of a sound by vibration of the vocal folds in the larynx. Vowel One of two general categories used to classify speech sounds, the other being consonant. Phonetically they are sounds made with an open vocal tract so that air escapes evenly, without audible friction, over the centre of the tongue. Graphologically, also used to describe the graphemes (in English, 'a', 'e', 'i', 'o', 'u' ) representing such sounds in written language.

Drama

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Drama

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What will we learn in this topic?

Analysing Drama - Preliminary Matters

Analysing Drama - Preliminary Matters

Analysing Drama - Preliminary Matters

Drama, London: Routledge, pp.6-18.

Analysing Drama - Preliminary Matters

Task B - Our answer

Conversational structure and power

Task A - What is power?

Task A - Our answer

Task C - Our answer

Task D - Assessing the extent and character of conversational power

Task D - Our answer

George Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara

Task A - Familiarising yourself with the passage

20 STEPHEN [much perplexed]: 21 LADY B: 22 STEPHEN: 23 LADY B: 24 STEPHEN [troubled]:

25 LADY B: 26 STEPHEN [almost inaudibly]: 27 LADY B:

28 STEPHEN: 29 LADY B [complacently]:

George Bernard Shaw

Watch the 'Major Barbara' video clip.

Task B - Initial impressions

Task B - Our answer

Analysing Major Barbara

Task A - Who has the longest turns?

Task A - Our answer

Lady Britomart Stephen

Task B - Who has the most turns?

Task B - Our answer

Task C - Who interrupts who?

Task C - Our answer

Lady Britomart Stephen

Analysing Major Barbara

Task D - Our answer

Task E - Who initiates the conversational exchanges and who responds?

Task E - Our answer

Task F - Who uses coercive speech acts?

Task F - Our answer

Task G - Who controls the topic?

Task G - Our answer

Task H - Our answer

Task I - Our answer

Task J - Anything else of significance?

Task J - Anything else of significance?

15 LADY B [squaring herself at him rather aggressively]:

Topic 11 'tool' Summary

What will we learn in this topic?

Inference and the Discourse Architecture of Drama

Inference and the Discourse Architecture of Drama

Task A - Our answer

Task B - Overhearers and audiences (and dramatic irony)

Task B - Our answer

Grice's Cooperative Principle

Grice's Cooperative Principle

Maxim of relation Be relevant.

Breaking the maxims

We can FLOUT them

Task B - Coming out of the theatre again

Task B - Our answer

Task C - The Importance of Being Earnest again

, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1)

Task C - Our answer

Practising Gricean Analysis

Task A - Kate is nice

Task A - Our answer