CONTEXTS

Nixon, where title plus last name and the indefinite article together convey
that Fanny recognizes Mrs Nixon, but does not actually know her.
A full analysis of the story would entail many other dimensions of analysis;
but even knowledge of such a simple linguistic system as that for addressing
and referring to others can be seen to be extremely useful in explaining what
happens.
Discourse Analysis and the Beginning of Shaws Major Barbara
In my discussion of the passage from Shaws Major Barbara (1905) I will build
on the terms of address analysis used above and supplement it by other analytical
techniques used by linguists in examining conversation. Again, the account will
be by no means complete. However, it should give some flavour of how discourse
analysis can be used to help display what goes on in dramatic texts.
(At the beginning of the play, Stephen enters. His mother, Lady Britomart is
writing at her writing table.)
Stephen: Whats the matter?
Lady Britomart: Presently, Stephen.
(Stephen submissively walks to the settee and sits down. He takes up a Liberal
weekly called The Speaker.)
Lady Britomart: Dont begin to read, Stephen. I shall require all your attention.
Stephen: It was only while I was waiting
Lady Britomart: Dont 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.
Stephen: Not at all, mother.
Lady Britomart: 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.) Dont fiddle with your tie, Stephen:
there is nothing the matter with it.
Stephen: I beg your pardon. (He fiddles with his watch chain instead.)
Lady Britomart: Now are you attending to me, Stephen?
Stephen: Of course, mother.
Lady Britomart: No: its 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 chain alone.
Stephen: (hastily relinquishing the chain) Have I done anything to annoy you,
mother? If so, it was quite unintentional.
Lady Britomart: (astonished) Nonsense! (With some remorse) My poor boy,
did you think I was angry with you?
Stephen: What is it, then, mother? You are making me very uneasy.
Lady Britomart: (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?

1094

LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE

Stephen: (amazed) Only a

Lady Britomart: Dont 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.
Stephen: I!
Lady Britomart: Yes, you, of course. You were 24 last June. Youve been at
Harrow and Cambridge. Youve been to India and Japan. You must know a
lot of things, now; unless you have wasted your time most scandalously.
Well, advise me.
(Shaw, 1960, pp. 513)

Lady Britomart is portrayed here as a domineering woman who exercises

almost complete control over her son. That she treats a man as if he were a
small boy is itself a source of humour, but a significant addition to the fun
occurs when it appears that Lady Britomart believes she is the weak participant
in the conversation. What I have said so far is not particularly difficult to see.
As always with Shaw, the stage directions give explicit instructions to the
actors on how to play the scene. But how does Shaw achieve the effects
mentioned above through the conversational behaviour of the characters?
The use of vocatives is very marked in the extract. Lady Britomart uses
Stephen eight times in ten utterances, and Stephen uses mother four times
in nine utterances. This all indicates a relatively distant mother-son relationship
in keeping with our stereotypes of behaviour in English upper-class families
early this century. The establishment of this formal and asymmetrical power
relationship is comically interrupted after Lady Britomarts sixth Stephen
when she responds to his asking if he has annoyed her with My poor boy.
The power structure of the dialogue can also be demonstrated by looking
at the control of conversational turns and topics. As the conversation is dyadic,
we would not expect to see an asymmetrical distribution of turns. However,
it will be instructive to examine other mechanisms by which conversational
power is indicated in naturally occurring conversation: who speaks longest?
what kind of turns do each of the speakers have? who speaks first? who
interrupts whom? who controls when others are allowed to speak? and who
controls the conversational topic?
Stephen has 51 words, an average of 5.4 words per utterance; Lady
Britomart has 213 words, an average of 21.3. Lady Britomart controls
Stephens behaviour by commanding him to do things. Stephen has no
commands, but she has eight, four of which are negative (Dont begin to
read, Dont make excuses, Dont fiddle with your tie, Dont repeat
my words). These negative commands, designed to stop him doing things
that he is already doing, give the interaction its mother-to-child flavour.
Adult-to-adult commands are usually positive and (because of the need to be
1095

CONTEXTS

polite) indirect. Adult-to-child commands are usually much more direct

(exhibiting a marked power relationship) and negative, because adults spend
much of their time preventing children from doing things which are harmful
or antisocial.
Lady Britomart interrupts Stephen twice. He never interrupts her. Her
interruptions effectively prevent him from changing the topic of the
conversation. Besides controlling the topic, Lady Britomart initiates the
conversational exchanges and Stephen merely responds. Even though Stephen
utters the plays first words, it is evident that those words, via the
presupposition behind them and the surrounding stage directions, are actually
a response to an earlier summons by his mother. Stephens utterance is in turn
ruled out of court by Lady Britomart, who wants to finish what she is writing.
Thus she controls when Stephen is allowed to speak as well as what he can
speak about.
It is against this background of her extreme dominance over Stephen that
Lady Britomart tells him he must take control of the family affairs. Stephen,
like the audience, is amazed, something which is indicated not only by the
stage directions but also by his last two utterances, which merely echo what
his mother has already said. The clash between what Lady Britomart wants
and what she does is perhaps most obviously realized in You must advise me:
you must assume the responsibility, where she orders him to dominate her. A
further indication of her unreasonable assumptions can be seen when she
asks may I ask you how soon you intend to realize that you are a grownup man, and that I am only a woman? The term grown-up smacks of adultchild talk, and the presupposition behind only a woman is at odds with the
rest of her conversational behaviour. In addition, her utterances syntactic
structure, which has an unintentional verb realize dominated by an intentional
verb intend, produces another absurd clash between pairs of presuppositions
which she apparently holds.
There are many other things which could be said about the linguistic
structure of this text and how it gives rise to the comedy we can all see in the
scene. And the linguistic analysis I have presented is by no means as detailed
as I would like. However, along with the other discussions, it will at least
have suggested how stylistic analysis can be used to help explain the effects of
texts, and why literary critics cannot afford to neglect the findings of modern
linguistics.
FURTHER READING
Brumfit, C.J. and Carter, R.A. (eds) (1986) Literature and Language Teaching, Oxford
University Press, Oxford
Burton, D. (1980) Dialogue and Discourse: A Sociolinguistic Approach to Modern

1096