Linguistics II - External Students Paper: Interview To Linda Ronstadt

Anselmino, Marina marinaanselmino@hotmail.
com 0351-152893738
Daniel, Romina Paola rominadaniel@hotmail.com 0351-156318787
(07/05/14)
Linguistics II - External Students Paper: Interview to Linda Ronstadt
Introduction
In this paper, we have analyzed an English interview hosted by Tavis Smiley to
the musician Linda Ronstadt in a TV show on September 25, 2013. In the interview, the
interviewee, Linda, tells a fully developed story to the interviewer, Tavis. That part of
the interview we selected lasts from minute 23:27 to minute 24:57.
Main parts of the fully developed story
According to Goatly (2000), the structure of the genre conversational story of
personal experience can be made up of six structural components discovered by
William Labov. We took them into account and identified some of them in the story told
by Linda Ronstadt.
With regard to what Labov says about the abstract, that it encapsulates the
point of the story (Labov 1972 in Goatly 2000: 31), we consider that the abstract of
the story relates to what Tavis and Linda say at the beginning of the story. First, Tavis
mentions Remember the earthquake? and then Linda corrects Tavis and expresses that
it was not an earthquake but a flood, The flood in Malibu.
The orientation material is scattered throughout the story. In this case, the
storyteller and the protagonist coincide. The storyteller, Linda, is telling a story of her
own personal experience in which she is the protagonist. Linda Ronstadt and Jerry
Brown, her boyfriend at that time and the governor of California, are the main
characters of the story. It took place on the Malibu beach, which is specified through
two adverbials of place when Linda says I was living out at Malibu, on the beach. She
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Anselmino, Marina marinaanselmino@hotmail.com 0351-152893738
(07/05/14)
also provides background information about her past using the simple past tense when
she says I grew up in the desert, where the first thing you learn in the desert is you do
not build a house on a flood plain. The time when the story occurred is not clearly
specified. She only mentions that there was a year of storms, but she does not make
reference to any precise date. So, we can infer that the temporal setting of the story is
during a period of time in that year of storms when Linda was dating Jerry. In order to
set the story, the storyteller uses some progressive ing forms, such as was living
and are living in I was living out at Malibu and So here were living in this row
house in the Malibu colony, making reference to actions going on at the time in which
the narrated events took place. Besides, by using the relational verb be, Linda describes
states, such as in The beach is a flood plain, the beach is an elastic thing and It
was right on the beach. The time and place of the narrative is described through the use
of noun phrases functioning as time adverbials such as this one year of storms and
adverbials of place such as here, out at Malibu, on the beach and where. Then,
Linda continues providing information needed as background: The beach is a flood
plain, because the ocean the beach is an elastic thing. It doesnt stay in the same shape
or the same contour. The ocean has a mind of its own; it goes where it wants., So one
day theres a lot of storms, and theres just this one year of storms, and its just a
catastrophe. and Well, the ocean decides to just knock off a room on my house. It just
ate a room of my house. It had one a lot of damage to houses along there. The residents
of Malibu wanted some help from the government because their houses were
destroyed. Here we find simple present and simple past tenses used as orientation
information that sets the background.
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We found a series of clauses which are discrete actions that constitute the
complicating section. First, we identified that, when Linda decides to represent Jerrys
voice, there exists a mismatch between what the protagonist, Linda, wants and what she
actually gets, which produces a kind of tension. Besides, with the metaphorical
expression What are we, chopped liver? she is making a contrast between what Jerry
wants to do and what she expects from him. Another punctual action is identified when
Linda states that the residents of Malibu, secondary characters of the story, were ready
to come with pitchforks and torches and burn the place down because he wasnt
helping. The complicating action is made up of events which occur one after the other
and are told in clauses with simple present tenses such as cant do and help, which
have past time reference, and simple past tenses such as were and wasnt. These
narrative clauses recapitulate a sequence of events leading up to the point of maximum
suspense: the climax.
As regards the resolution, it is provided by the last four clauses: He went up
and down the beach, he talked to all the residents, he figured out what was going
on and he eventually did send some help. Those narrative clauses release the tension
and tell us what finally happens, bringing the sequence of actions and events to an end.
The coda is signalled at the end of the story when Linda says, But my feeling is
that... until Its a bad thing altogether. in which we understand that the narrative is
completed, connecting the story world with the present time through a change of tenses.
Linda was narrating the story by means of simple and progressive present tenses, with
past time reference, and past tenses, and all of the sudden, by using present tense, she
includes general observations and some comments on the effects the event has had on
her and the residents of Malibu.
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Concerning evaluation, we identified some elements being evaluated, such as
building a house on the beach, the ocean, Jerry and the residents of Malibu. One
evaluative comment is made about the experience of building a house on the beach,
when Linda states that it is a silly thing to do, Bad idea and Its a bad thing
altogether. By means of the adjectives silly and bad, she is attributing a quality to
the experience she had about living on the beach. Another evaluative device is used to
represent the ocean as a negative force. By means of the rhetorical resource of
personification, Linda gives the ocean qualities only attributed to human beings when
she says, the ocean decides to just knock off a room on my house, It just ate a room
of my house., The ocean has a mind of its own; it goes where it wants. In those
cases, the actions of deciding, knocking off, eating and going are performed by the
ocean as if it were an intrusive person. There is a further evaluative comment
concerning Jerry, who is valued as a good person when Linda resorts to the adjective
good in He was good. The use of the evaluative device good helps us to gather up
clues and to interpret the positive image that Linda presents of Jerry. Finally, the
residents of Malibu were represented as people having little value when Linda uses the
metaphorical expression what are we, chopped liver? which is an evaluative statement
that represents all the victims of the catastrophe as being ignored since chopped liver is
usually considered a side dish rather than a main dish.
Time line and role of place
As regards the time line, we can identify a series of discrete events that occur in
a chronological order. The order in which the actions are placed is important because
interlocutors can infer that when an action is told first, it takes place before the second
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action. For example, when Linda mentions that He went up and down the beach and he
talked to all the residents and he figured out what was going on, and he eventually did
send some help., the actions went up and down occurred first, talked occurred
second, figured out occurred third, and did send occurred at the end of the other
three actions mentioned.
Concerning the role of place, the story occurred on the Malibu beach, location
that is relevant to the story. This setting has an effect on how the events took place,
because, as Linda tells, the beach is a flood plain and the beach is an elastic thing,
which leaves the coast more exposed to storms. The consequences of the catastrophe
would not have been so serious if the colony were not located in a coastal area.
Represented discourse
Through direct discourse representation, Linda incorporates Jerry Browns
voice: Jerry said, Oh, no, we cant do that, because my girlfriend lives there, and if I
help them theyll say Im helping my girlfriend and Im giving her special favors. The
effect of incorporating Jerrys voice is to distance herself from Jerrys position,
predisposing the audience to side with the text producers main concern.
After the representation of Jerrys voice, Linda represents what she thought at
that time with the informal particle be like in Im like what are we, chopped liver?
The humorous effect produced by that expression is achieved through the analogy
between people (we) and chopped liver. We understand the concept chopped liver
because of the assumptions we have about the cognitive model side dish. So, if we
compare people with chopped liver, we understand that those people are being ignored
or dismissed as chopped liver usually is.
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Reported discourse in each of the two cases is employed for the expression of
stances, a means of presenting the antagonists viewpoint (Jerrys position) weak and
unconvincingly and Lindas position sound.
NO entiendo esto Lindas position sound. ( sound quiere decir que SU
ARGUMENTO ES SENSATO, SLIDO, y el argumento de Jerry se presenta como
dbil e inconvincente)
09/09/2014 Listo romi, no saba q sound poda usarse como adjetivo
Rhetorical resources
We detected some cases of personification. Through that rhetorical resource, the
ocean is given human attributes. The non-human object is portrayed in such a way that
we feel it has the ability to act like human beings. When Linda says the ocean decides
to just knock off a room on my house and It just ate a room of my house., she is
giving the ocean the ability to decide, knock off and eat, which are human qualities.
We also identified the metaphorical expression what are we, chopped liver?
With this metaphor, Linda conceptualizes human existence (the target domain) in terms
of one type of food, chopped liver (the source domain). Features of the concrete thing,
chopped liver, are transferred to the abstract thing, human existence. That conceptual
mapping between the target and the source domain involves ontological and epistemic
correspondences. Understanding this metaphor requires identifying attributes from our
knowledge about chopped liver to create the ontological source domain and then finding
corresponding attributes in the target domain, human existence. For instance, if we say
that somebody is like chopped liver, this may mean that such a person has little value, or
is disregarded, or is high in fat and cholesterol, or is annoying, and so on. Such
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correspondences permit us to reason about human existence using the knowledge we
use to reason about chopped liver. That reasoning can be used to characterize epistemic
correspondences by mapping knowledge about chopped liver onto knowledge about
human existence: somebody can be dismissed because he or she is fat and annoying
towards people, that person can respond to that behaviour by ignoring it or responding
with another aggression, and so on.
Creo que ac queda major HUMAN EXISTENCE, porque en la metfora dice
what ARE we, chopped liver?, en la cual ARE es ser o estar, por eso quedara
mejor existencia humana. El ser no es una experiencia humana (cosas que le pasan
a uno son experiencias, no el ser o estar en la vida) te parece?? Ok
We identified some parallel structures, such as Im helping my girlfriend and
Im giving her special favors. Parallelism has the effect of making the text producers
standpoint salient and memorable, orienting the audience to accept it.
We detected an instance of repetition. In the sentence He went up and down the
beach and he talked to all the residents and he figured out what was going on, and he
eventually did send some help, Linda enumerates a series of actions that Jerry did and
repeats the connector and between them. This rhetorical resource has a positive effect
on the audience since it works to emphasise the fact that Jerry is a good and sympathetic
person.
Another linguistic resource we recognised is when she uses the discourse
markers so at the beginning of the sentence So anyway.... So is a deictic that
focuses the addressees attention on what follows after the representation of Jerrys
voice. This so announces she is going to introduce a new topic to the other
interlocutor. It is the same speaker, Linda, who is making a change that affects the
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content of what she is saying, while she is also trying to keep the floor organizing her
speech.
Lo de that affects the content of what she is saying lo tengo de notas de clase,
le podemos sacar el mainly si te parece, como lo dej aca, otra opcin sino??
Si lo tenes asi de clase dejalo asi!! Pasa q a veces usan frases tan rebuscadas q
suenan rarsimas! Pero estoy de acuerdo con lo que indica el SO, solo restaba saber si
ese affects the content of what she is saying era vlido je
The story`s main point and discourse analysis
The storys main point is clearly established at the beginning of the story telling,
in the abstract section, the one that encapsulates the point of the story (Labov 1972
in Goatly 2000: 31). As a result, we can infer that the storys main point is related to
what happened to Linda during the flood in Malibu while she was dating Jerry.ok
In order to analyse the image projected for and the relationship between the
protagonist, the antagonist, the narrator/interviewee and the audience/interviewer, we
would like to start with Norman Faircloughs concept of discourse. He states discourse
is always simultaneously and partly constitutive of social identities, social relations and
systems of knowledge and belief (Fairclough 1995a: 55). According to him, there exist
some assumptions we can make through discourse, since texts are multifuncional: they
can perform an ideational function (assumptions about systems of knowledge and
belief) and an interpersonal function (assumptions about social relations and social
identities).
In the interview, we identified that there exists an asymmetrical relationship
between the interviewer, Tavis, and the interviewee, Linda. The topic is decided by the
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interviewer, who makes an abrupt change of topic when Tavis says, Remember the
earthquake? The interaction is usually guided by the interviewer, who structures it by
making statements that have the force of a command, such as when he says, Yeah, tell
the story right quick before Linda starts with the storytelling.
Following Barbara Johnstone, discourse is one of the principal activities
through which ideology is circulated and reproduced (Johnstone 2002: 45). Some
linguistic choices help to represent the speakers knowledge status. For example, when
Linda resorts to the mental process verb think in the beaches are the public I think
for a couple of miles back, we can infer that it indicates the level of the speakers
confidence about the truth of her claim; confidence that is reinforced by her clapping
over her lap while she is uttering that claim. The qualifying phrase I think indicates
some degree of uncertainty. We can understand that from what she knows of living on
the beach (although she may be wrong) the beaches are the public for a couple of miles
back. We can understand that Linda is presenting herself as knower of the experience
of living on the beach, and her claim as believed and possible. (No se me ocurre qu
mas poner aca...) Besides, through the use of modality, Linda expresses her individual
position or attitude concerning what she is exposing, since the principal function of
modality is to express the subjective side of the argument. As a result, we can infer that
Lindas ideology is expressed through the modal should in But my feeling is that the
beaches should belong to everybody and Nobody should be able to build anything.
In this case, should expresses epistemic modality, the modality of knowledge and
belief, which tends to develop from the deontic usage, the modality of permission.
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References
- Caldwell, Cher. 50 Most Common Rhetorical Devices [Web page]. Retrieved
05/04/2014, from: http://quizlet.com/11640005/50-most-common-rhetorical-
devices-part-1-flash-cards/
- Croft, William and D. Alan Cruse (2004). Extract. Chapter 8: Metaphor. In
Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- Goatly, Andrew (2000). Extract. Generic structure. Critical Reading and
Writing. An Introductory Coursebook. London: Routledge.
- Johnstone, Barbara (2002). Discourse and the world. Discourse Analysis.
Oxford, UK / Walden, US: Blackwell.
- Kress, Gnther (1989. Reprinted 1990). Extract from Chapter 1 in Linguistic
Processes in Sociocultural Practice. Oxford, UK: O.U. Press.
- Lakoff, George (1992). The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor [Web page].
Retrieved 03/09/2014, from: http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~israel/lakoff-
ConTheorMetaphor.pdf
- Norman Fairclough (1995a). Critical analysis of media discourse. In Media
Discourse. London: Arnold.
- Saeed, John I. (2009). Third Edition. Chapter 11: Cognitive Semantics. In
Semantics. Malden (MA): Wiley-Blackwell.
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Appendix
Interview with Linda Ronstadt
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/tavissmiley/interviews/singer-linda-ronstadt/
http://www.vpt.org/videoplayer?v=2365086944
(From: Minute 23:27 aprox - Until: Minute 24:57 aprox)
Tavis: Yeah. Theres a great story, a funny story to me, of one of the consequences that
you suffered from dating Jerry Brown. Remember the earthquake?
Ronstadt: Oh, the flood.
Tavis: The flood, I meant.
Ronstadt: The flood in Malibu.
Tavis: Yeah, tell the story right quick. (Laughter)
Ronstadt: I was living out at Malibu, on the beach, which is a silly thing to do, because
I grew up in the desert, where the first thing you learn in the desert is you do not build a
house on a flood plain.
Guess what? The beach is a flood plain, because the ocean the beach is an elastic
thing. It doesnt stay in the same shape or the same contour. The ocean has a mind of its
own; it goes where it wants.
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(07/05/14)
So here were living in this row house in the Malibu colony. It was right on the beach.
Bad idea. So one day theres a lot of storms, and theres just this one year of storms, and
its just a catastrophe.
Well, the ocean decides to just knock off a room on my house. It just ate a room of my
house. It had one a lot of damage to houses along there. The residents of Malibu wanted
some help from the government because their houses were destroyed.
Jerry said, Oh, no, we cant do that, because my girlfriend lives there, and if I help
them theyll say Im helping my girlfriend and Im giving her special favors. Im like
what are we, chopped liver? (Laughter)
So anyway, so then they were ready to come with pitchforks and torches and burn the
place down because he wasnt helping. He was good. He went up and down the beach
and he talked to all the residents and he figured out what was going on, and he
eventually did send some help.
But my feeling is that the beaches should belong to everybody. The beaches are the
public I think for a couple of miles back. Nobody should be able to build anything. It
causes erosion. Its a bad thing altogether.
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Linguistics II - External Students Paper: Interview To Linda Ronstadt

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Anselmino, Marina marinaanselmino@hotmail.

Daniel, Romina Paola rominadaniel@hotmail.com 0351-156318787