Professional Documents
Culture Documents
4:2.239
International
Prasmatiqs
Association
Jacob L. Mey
The British novelistMargaret Drabble describesin one of her books how the chief
character, following her husband'sneed to spenda year away from home for reasons
of work, decidesto pick up the family and move with him. The year spent in Hereford
turnsout to be a year'in between',in which the protagonists go through a number of
theatricalanticsand frantic affairs on and off stage,for in the end to find themselves
wherethey started off: truly a 'Garrick Year' (Drabble 1966).2
In the samevein, 1993could be calleda'Garrick Year' for pragmatics,a year
in betweenyears, in which the actors go about their usual, more or less trantic,
business,without reflectingtoo much on the present,but with a great deal of concern
for the past and the future.
As to the past, we have seen some showsbeing put on the road; others are
supposedto follow in the near or more distant future (mentioning a few buzz-words
suchas'Handbook'and 'Encyclopedia'willprobablysufficefor most readers);it is still
tooearlvto sayanythingabout the successof all theseventures,but they certainlyhave
resulted(as in Drabble's book) in a number of heart-breakingscenesand heary
frustrationson the part of the actorsand would-beactorsinvolvedin their production.
As to the fitture, one could point to the fact that more and more workers in
pragmatics are beginningto realizethat pragmaticsand humansurvivalhave something
to do with each other; as example,compare the growing interest in problems of
minorities(not only linguisticallvdetermined)and the dangersthat threaten many
languages spokenby peopleon their way to extinction.The dangersthemselvesare of
I I want to thank an anonymous referee o[ Pragmatic.rfor his/hcr many useful hints, critical
remarks,and corrections (even the present, new title was one of this referee'ssuggestions;the original
'Pragmatics in the Nineties: Topics, Trends, Perspectives").
title of the talk was
2 The title alludes to the actor and playwright David Garrick (I716-1779), founder of the famous
Garrick Theatre in London and one of the sreat histrionic talcnts of all times.
244 Jacob L. Mq,
different kinds; among them, one might want to single out the phenomenon of
'linguicide',as definedby Phillipsonand Skutnabb-Kangas in a number of publications
(most recently 1994);I will come back to theseissuesbelow,section3.
But also in other respects,1993 is typicallyan 'in befween' year. If one is
interestedin, and lendscredenceto, datesas representative of trendsand happenings,
here are sometypicallandmarks(chosenratherarbitrarilyamongmany possibleones):
The year before this, in 1992,it was 30 yearssincepragmaticswas born, so to
say, out of the posthumousbrain of John L. Austin: How to Do Things With Words
appearedon the scenein 1962.
The year 1993itself celebratesthe tenth anniversaryof the publicationof two
major treatises on pragmatics, Leech's Principlesof Pragmatics and Levinson's
Pragmutic.s. Both works have sincecome to be recognizedas classics,even if they are
notoriouslydifficult to use as texts;especiallythe latter is more of a comprehensive
handbookthan a textbookin the usualmeaningof the term: a text to be used as the
rrainstayof an introductr)rycoursein pragmatics.(Horn, writing about Levinsonin
1988,thinks otherwise;for a differentview,cf. my own (1986)reviewof both books).3
F-inally,next year, in 1994, we will be able to celebrate the twenty-fifth
anniversaryof Austin's 'secondcclming',one could say,at the hands of John Searle,
whose SpeecltActs, thai other classicof pragmatics,first saw the light of day in 1969.
One of the thingsthat happenin Drabble's'Garrick Year' is that Emma, the
heroine,finds herself in a new situationwith which she has some ditficulty to cope.
When I was asked,in early 1993,to deliver the plenary lecture (on which the present
article is based)at that year'sInternationalPragmaticsConference,I felt a bit like an
elderlyunclewho is supposedto tell the youngercrowdwhat lit-e'sall about:wherewe
came from, where our roots are, and where we are going: typicallythe kind of speech
you'd expectfrom an elder statesman(not to saya Dutch uncle)and not quite the kind
of stageI normallyt-eelhappy on.
Let me thereforementionanotherGarrickyhappening,this one on the personal
level. In 1993,I submitteda book on pragmaticsto a seriouspublisherunder a title
that I thought was extremely appropriate,but that the publisher adamantly and
consistentlyrefusedto place on the cover:'Out of the waste-basket: An introduction
to pragmatics'(someof my readersmay haveseena pre-publicationcopy).The book
waseventuallyacceptedundera new title (Mey 1993),and I supposeone could call my
presentproductiona Garrick-typestageshow,somethinglike: 'Out of the waste-basket,
into the fire!', harking birck to my book's original inscriptionas well as to the great
1.Topics
*
Some samples: High lifc below the stats, The clondestrnentarnoge (this onc is actually
performcd in Drabblc's story!), Mis.srn her teens, The lying +'alet.
242 JacobL" Mey
and dedicatedto the dear departedone. The book is also quite unlike the other things
that Bolinger had producedin the courseof a long and fertile life as a linguist"In short,
it is a book in the spirit (albeit not in the tradition) of pragmatics.
The'upsurge'Bolingeris referringto, is that generatedby Alfred Korzybskiand
'General
his so-called Semantics'- a word that soon came to be a bugaboofor young
linguistsin the tifties like myself,who were warned explicitly againstKorzybski (and
against his best known follower and popularizer,the late S.I. Hayakawa, of sixties
notorietyand assortedother,senatorialfame).We were told that an interestin matters
'languageand people' had very
such as 'languageand society'.'languageand mind',
little to do with science.and certainlynothingwith linguistics.
As a result of all this, I nevergot to read Korzybskior Hayakawa,and Bolinger's
book, Languagetlte loaded weapon (1980), only rather late in life - to be exact, six
months after I had talked to its author on the phone for the last time, a year before his
death.Only then I decidedto tind out what that funny little book of his was all about.
By the time I had tinished the book, and had taught a freshmanclassbasedon it as a
text, Dwight Bolinger had passedaway,so I never had a chanceto tell him how much
I liked this work, and how close I felt he was to many of the things that we, as
pragrnaticists, stand for.
One may safely assume that Bolinger would not have objected to being
considered a pragmaticist(h" never called himself that explicitly).sThe term
'pragmatics' is not mentioned anywherein his book. Yet, the general tenor of it is
pragmatic,as witnessedby the quote above.It is also clear that Bolinger,in unraveling
the threads emanatingfrom Korzybski'swork, got as far back as to Sapir and Whorf -
the rest is silence.Taking into accountthe transatlantic gap, attestedalsoby the lack
of knowledge of Bolinger'sbook among most ContinentalEuropeanso,as well as the
fact that what Bcllingerpublishedin 1980had been written a number of yearsearlier
(in tact, most of his examplesstem from the years 1970-74),it seemssafe to say that
Bolinger (and probably most people on his side of the Atlantic) were unawareof a
European developmentin the seventiesthat was to spur a new "upsurgeof interestin
the way that languageatfecisour lives",a movementin linguisticsthat subsequently
came to be known aspragmatics.
As Bolinger'scasenicelyshows,ycludon't have to believein pragmaticsto be
a pragmatician- althoughit certainlyhelps.Not all of us are Bolingers;most of us are
hideboundby our petty beliefsand predilections, and rarelylift our eyesto look across
the fence that we so laboriouslyhave erectedto protect ourselvesfrom alien int-luences
and from disturbancesof our small circles.
In the spirit of the celebratedM. Jourdain (from Le bourgeois-gentilltomme by
5
Jef Verschucren (pcrs. comm.) has drawn my attention to rhe fact that Bolinger actively served
on thc IPrA Consultation Board from 1986 through 1990,when he had to step down becauseof his
faihng health.
6 A f"* honorable exceplion, such as Jan-Ola Ostman and Jef Verschueren. deserve to be
mcntioned; the latter actually reviewed Bolinger's book right after it came out (Verschueren 1981).
A socialpragnmtics
for survival 243
Molidre),who came to look upon himself one day and discoveredthat for tbrty years,
he had been speakingprose, for many of those who now regard themselvesas
pragmaticists, the coming of the new disciplinewas a welcome event. But there is a
difference:while Dwight Bolinger was a true, natural pragmaticist,l4lemust become
worthyof that name by laboring(sometimesagainstthe trendsof our time), carvingout
a nichefor what we think is the most importantelementin languagestudies:humans
andtheir use of language.
But noticethat what todayreadslike an invocation,or evenworse,a platitude,
wasnot at all commonlyacceptedin Bolinger'stimes of writing. The spirits of the
'upsurge'he is referring to: not only
the Korzybskisand Hayakawas,but even more so
(but naturally sarr comparaison)the Whorfs and Sapirs, were still haunting the
linguisticbackwoods,and woe unto him or her who venturedout there without the
necessary protective gear. Many would-be pragmaticistsof the early hours trying tct
enterthe LinguisticGarden were apt to suffer mutilation,or even untimelydeath,at
thehandsof the syntactichenchmenand the semanticgatekeepers, who preventedthe
non-initiated trom approachingthe garden'snlore remote parts,let alone communing
with the ugly thingsin the pragmaticwoodshed.
If you allow me to indulge a little more in personalreminiscences: the first
(pragmatic'
mentionof anything in my own writingsturns up as late as 1976,in a talk
I gavein Finlandunderthe title of 'Qualification, emancipatory languageand pragmatic
linguistics'(notice that I didn't dare to let'pragmatic'standalone!).In actualfact, I had
alreadystartedthe publicationof what was to become,after a number of editorial
mishapsand collapsingpublishinghouses,Lhe 7979volume entitled hagmalinguistics:
Theoryanclhaclrce, which managedto come out in one of the fortunate, but erratic
intersticeswhen the venerable publishing house of Mouton, The Hague (who had
published Chomsky'sflrst book in 1957)wasnot eithergoingbankruptor beingbought
up by the expandingfirm of Walter de Gruyter, Berlin.
Incidentally,if I may continuemy reminiscing, that volumewasitselfan offspring
froman earlierpaper I had givenat the XIth Congressof Linguistsin Bolognain 7912
- however,, that paper'stitle doesn'tmentionthe word 'pragmatic'at all, but usesthe
safer,lessoftensive,lessprogrammaticterm 'practical':'Some practicalaspectsof a
theoryof perfirrmance'(M.y 1974;notice how the title, judiciouslyand studiously,
coversthe author's linguistictracks by appealingto the then-currentofficial lingo).
Evenso, after the talk a representative of Mouton'swalked up to me and askedif I
couldbe persuadedto do a collectionof articleson subjectsrelatedto pragmatics.To
which,of course,I said Yes,and it wasthis collectionwhichfinallyappearedunder the
'pragmalinguistic'
label (Mey 1979),a term that had become popular for a while in
Germany,but had alreadyfallen into oblivion again by the end of the decade (see
M a a sl 9 T 3 a n d e s p e c i a l l y H a g e r , H a b e r l a n d a n d P
1a9 r7i3sb; y t h e w a y , i f o n e i s i n t o
dates,we have yet another memorabletwentiethanniversaryhere).
By and bye, people decidedthat it would be appropriateto start talking about
'pragmatics' also on the English-speaking linguisticscene,as it had happenedearlier
in Denmark, in 197011977, where the pragmatictide was in, riding on top of the anti-
authoritariancrestsurgingup from WesternGermany.Here, the "dominantdoctrine"
244 JocobL. Mry
a
' In contrast, the tradition inspired by Grice, and later by Searle
and their followers, is often
'Northern
called the Californian' one - which is a bit unfair. to say the least, to the 'Berkeley school'
around people like John Gumperz.
A social pragnnlics for sun,iv,al 245
"Linguistics, in thc widest sense, is that branch of science which contains all empirical
invcstigation conccrning languages.It is thc dcscriptivc, empirical part of scmiotic (of spoken
or writtcn languages);hence it consists of pragmatics,scmantic.s,and descriptive syntax. But
thesc three parts are not on the same level; ltragntatics is the basrs for all of lingtistrcs...
s c m a n t i c sa n d s y n t a xa r c , s t r i c t l y s p e a k i n g ,p a r t s o f p r a g m a t i c s . (" 1 9 4 2 : 1 3 )
I
I
I
I
l.
IT
246 Jacob L. Mey
2. Trends
For all the topics mentioned in the previous section, a common metaphorical
'eruption',
denominatorcould be that of a 'disruption',respectively an to be controlled,
respectivelycontained,by and within the given framework. The case of speech act
theory is a clear exampleof this doubletendency.While speechacts,on the one hand,
threaten to disrupt the framework of syntactictheory by not always or necessarily
respectingthe 'grammaticality'criterion (i.e.,beingexpressed in grammaticallycorrect
sentences),and thus have to be controlled (preferablyby rule-like statements),at the
same time they transcendthe boundariesof syntaxand semantics:they are eruptions
that have to be pushed down below the surface, preferably with the help of
'constraints',that is, conditionscontrollingoutput (on rules vs. constraints,see M.y
lee1).
A first approximationof this trend is alreadyvisible in syntaxin the late sixties
in the form of what George Lakotf called 'global rules' - in reality a further
developmentof Chomsky'searlier(1965)conceptof 'selectionalrestrictions':whereas
the former were put in the form of rules and conditionson rules, the latter were
formed as conditionsthat operatedon the output of severalrulesat one and the same
ti me .
In the same sense,one could say that the 'sincerity conditions' and 'felicity
conditions'on speechacts,developedby Austin and perfectedand systematizedby
Searle under the watchful eye of Grice, are diff'erentanimals:the former are derived
from a rule, the sincerityrule (Searle1969:63),the secondare really conditionson
output, constraintson 'where to put your act', or 'where to do thingswith words',as
10'Dn.(rrrse'is
t a k c n h c r e i n t h e t r a d i t i o n e s t a b l i s h e db y M i c h e l F o u c a u l t ( s e e ,e . g . , 1 9 7 2 ) .
Duranti& Goodwin rcmark, much to the point, that
"Discourse, hcrc, should not be confusedwith its usagein other analytical traditions in which
it means simply the flow of conversation,or a text longer than a sentence.Rather, for Foucault,
a discoursc is a cultural complcx of signs and practices that regulates how we live socially."
( 1 9 9 2 :3 0 ) .
254 JacobL Mey
3. Perspectives
journal Lartgttage) have been symptomatic in this respect (See Hale et al" 1992;
Ladefoged 1993 Dorian 1993).
The emphasis here has been on keeping what (still) is there, and delivering it
to the next generzrtion;cortsen,ationis the name of the game. To do the conservationist
1ob properly. however! one has to be sure that one does not propagate an erroneous
pictr.rreof reality; hence a great concern with the factual, descriptive aspects of the
languages that are focused on, as well as (albeit to a lesser degree) with the
classificatory aspects. both genetic and typological, such as have been in the focus of
m u c h l i n g u i s t i ct h i n k i n g , b o t h i n e a r h e r p e r i o d s a n d r e c e n t l y .
In prugmatics, thc need to distinguish itself from exclusively descriptive
'describee'
approaches hus been accompanied by an emphasis on taking the into
ilccount as ?ln essential part of the object (language) that one wanted to describe. The
social and cultural cotiexts of languages.as well as the conditions these contexts impose
on their users. have been of paramount interest for pragmaticists,as we have seen in
the previous scctitln.
All these activities, however. can be said to be basically retroactive,in that they
attempt tu reproduce a state of attairs. or bring a more primitive state of affairs up to
date. An exzrmpleof the latter is the emphasis on alphabetization, as embodied in the
literacy campai_unsthat have been waged in recent decadesboth at the home front and
'natives',
in the bush. The purpose of such campaigns was to give the whether they
were residents of the inner city or of the Gran Chaco, a chance to come up to par, and
participirte in modern lit'e on an equal footing with the rest of humanity. What
'grown
happened with them after that was not our concern. Once they had up',
lin_quistically. they were supposed to manage their own lives.
The retroactive policies that were defined in this way had a necessarily static
chnrzrcter.Moreover. they were usually determined with the needs of the campaigners
(the linguists. subsidiarily,the teachers,the colonizers,or the evangelists)in mind. The
'language
needs of the dontirtated population at large, of the carriers', were flltered
through the dominarul needs of the peclple who were in charge, the gatekeepers of the
ianguttge game. Thc people. rather than playing the game as subjects,were considered
to be objects. pawns that could be moved across the board whenever the real players
cleemed such a move neccssaryor useful.
'native
At the same tirne that being speakers' of an endangered language gave
Inanv clf these dorninated peoples a certain status and authurity (that of 'being always
right', as we used to say). their real status remained that of a subordinate group; and
'Thank
(apart from un occasiclnal You' in the preface of a doctoral dissertation) they
didn't get much in return for their erssistance from the visiting linguist or anthropologist.
The bartering was not on ii scale of mutual parity; there was no real interactiort.
The inte raction that did take place, moreover, was often, if not always. prefaced
'How
by the thought on the purt of the dominating visitors: can I use this for my
projec:t.proposal, article, talk, firm, religion, etc.?' Real interaction, that is, interaction
on equal terms, with actual needs and wants placed on the bargaining table, was
impossible, Also because in addition, neither party mastered the other's language and
culture well enough to engage in a discourse of parity. A truly interactive mode of
A socialpragnuilic,.s
for sun'ival 253
"[aluthentic use[isthatlwhichonespeaks
...language spontaneously, in natural
interpersonally,
A social prngnatics for survival 255
or real-lifc situations, ... Authentic speech relates to the type of communication that existed
when humans werc still illiterate and had not yet learned to manipulate language purely for
aesthetic,oratorical, artistic, literary, or histrionic purposes."
Apart from the fact that it is patently false that 'illiterate' societiesshould not
beableto 'manipulate'languagefor artisticpurposes(think of Homer!), underlyingthis
wholepassageis a notion of 'naturalness' which is alien to the real languagethat the
pragmaticist studies.Aller all, what is'naturallanguage'? (I am not concernedwith the
thing that computer people call 'natural language'- that's another story, and their.
headache). Natural language,like Winnicott'slittle child, does not exist - at least not
in the senseeulogizedby Britto in the passagequoted; neither does 'conversation',
considered by many of its protagonistsas the "prototypicalkind of languageuse", the
'naturaldialogue'in which all acquisition
(and use) of languageis embedded as in a
'matrix'(cf. Levinson
1983:284).
Parallelwith the romanticnotion of 'authenticity', anotherpopular notion (also
alreadymentioned) deservesto be debunked in the name of pragmatics: that of
languages as 'endangeredspecies'.The kind of linguisticbotanism that exclusively
focuseson the disappearanceof a linguisticvariety,without askingwho were the
keepersof that variety,who were the language'sspeakers,and under what conditions
theirlanguages disappearedand how they became'endangered'in the first place,has
nothingto do with a realistic,proactiveview on languageas used by real humans,not
by abstractNative Speakers,as we have seen above.
Similarly,a proactive approachto literarywould envisagepotential future uses
of thewrittenword, and take measuresand precautions to ensurethat it would be used
in the best possibleway. But not only that: a proactiveapproachwill focus on recent
advances in the areasof discourseanalysisand literary pragmatics,with emphasison
the 'role of the reader',to quote a famous title by Umberto E,co(1979): the user of
language,in this case the reader, is supposedto be a major, active element in the
creationof the text. Texts are not packagesdelivered neatly at the consumer's
doorstep,like milk used to be in the good old days;the packagethat is deliveredis in
realitya benevolentkind of time bomb, Bolinger's'loaded weapon',destinedto be set
off or fired by the reader at the moment of openingthe book, or by the spectatorat
curtaintime.
Similarly, a proactive approach to communicationwould ask what kind of
knowledgeand information would be important to future generations,and how we
shouldgo about communicatingit to them. Rather than give our successors a neatly
wrappedup, but mainly passive,legacyof our culture (in the spirit and image of our
would-becommunicationwith extraterrestrialbeings; cf. the notorious 'Voyager
tablets'), we should endeavorto guide them on and help them avoid our mistakes,
ratherthan tell them what to do with their own lives,languages, and cultures.
Finally, a proactiveapproachto problemsof context(in the widest senseof the
term: not just the immediate co-text of a message)would not merely establish
contextualconditions for a particular use of language,but look further into the
problemsof contexts,and of contextualization in general:what conditionsare favorable
256 JacohL. MrL
Such vital contexts,furthermore, are social,that is, they originate in. and are
continuedthrough,the medium of society.The emphasison words as 'signs',carriers
of meaning,or 'signifiants',tends to overlook this socialaspect.For Saussureand his
followers,the syntagmaticcontext of the signitieris purely concatenative,whereasthe
paradigmatic contextis at mostan'associative'(individually-psychological) one; neither
is a truly socialcontext.But if it is the contextthat carriesthe meaningsof the words,
wordingitself should not be describedexclusivelyas simple signifying,but rather, as a
processof establishingand continuing a social signification,in a societaldiscourse.
Wordsare carriersof socialmeaning;the 'signitiant'is in realitya 'sociofiant',a creator
of a socialcontext.
The words,furthermore,"[do] not belongto a particularindividual,but to the
societywhich that individualbelongsto", to borrow the JapaneselinguistYamaguchi's
pithyexpressionQ994:239). Both languageitself and its contextare primarily societal,
i.e.theybelongto the peopleliving,breathing,and workingin that society.That means,
not onlv that their signifyingin 'sociofication',their creation of the social context, is
inextricablybound up with their words and with their culture; but also, that they are
thefirstnatural'gatekeepers' to, and authorizersof, any useof their socialrealitiesand
culturalartifacts,among these their language.Such an attitude may conflict with the
traditional expectationsof the linguists and other cultural fieldworkers (such as
sociologists, anthropologists,and so on) who have consideredpeople primarily as
sources of data, as 'informants',and not as partnersin a joint effort of safeguardingthe
culture,or protecting'endangeredlanguages' from extinction,as in the casesquoted
above.
Fortunately,thereare signsin the air that thisattitudeamonglinguistsand other
cultureworkers is changing.Linguistsare becomingmore and more aware of the basic
problemsinvolvedin gatheringintormationin nativesettings,in'extracting'datafrom
their'informants',as we usedto say.A heightenedawareness of the conditionsunder
whichmany native people live, in closecontactwith their history,as it is embeddedin
theirsacredsitesand burial places,hashelpedlinguistsavoidsomeof the worst pitfalls
of patronizingattitudessuchas 'knowingwhat is best' for those'primitive' people.
A good example of nativesregainingcontrol over their own past and present
livesand culture,includingtheir language,is found in the institutionknown as CRATT
(for'Cultural ResourcesAdvisoryTask Team'), operatingamong the North American
Hopi. CRATT is a body consistingof a dozen and a half tribal cultural and religious
leaderswho are activelyconcernedwith the issuesof conservationand maintenanceof
the Hopi cultural and religious heritage.They act currently as a governingbody for
anthropologicalresearchwork to be performed among their kin. CRATT operates
underthe auspicesof the Hopi Culture PreservationOftice, and is thus fully under the
controlof the members of the socialcontext in which the Hopi culture and religion is
embedded.Field workers in anthropologyand linguisticswill have to conform to the
norms,and staywithin the limits of the traditionalculture,and perform their field work
'Hopi Wuy' - which
in accordancewith the in certain casesmay entail a ban or a
limitationon what researcherswill be allowedto publishof their work on Hopi matters.
(Source:Dongoskeet al. 1994).
258 JacobL.Mty
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