Third person interpretation and the sociolinguistics of verbal communication

PhD ThesisThis thesis is addressed to analysts of talk in social scenes. Its principal aim is to develop a framework for systematically investigating third person interpretations of what communicates and what is communicated in the data products of everyday verbal exchange. The programme of research that is designed to meet this aim is based on analytic and descriptive techniques adopted from a wide range of disciplines concerned with the study of verbal communication, and particularly those associated with the work of John Gumperz (1982a; 1982b). By focussing on the nature of third person descriptions of what goes on and who is involved in various tape recorded products of talk, the research seeks to explore the nature of members' interpretive resources for recovering and warranting communicative norms that are not normally verbalised as talk is in progress. The investigative method developed for this purpose provides professional observers with an empirical means of citing evidence in support of their own analytic claims about what participants are doing in talk. It also provides an enabling device for generating and testing hypotheses about the communicative salience of different sociolinguistic factors, much as Gumperz (1982a) suggests. On the basis of the work presented, it is argued that whatever the disciplinary motivation of the analyst or the sociolinguistic contexts in which talk occurs third person interpretive methods offer a powerful descriptive tool. The research potential of this tool is evaluated in terms of its utility for not only investigating the interpretive resources of different individuals within a specific culture, but also for developing culturally sensitive theories of communicative language use in general

Aspects of the information structure of spoken discourse

This thesis is a data-based investigation of the way speakers structure what they want to say in terms of 'given' and 'new' information. It is presented as a contribution to the study of the pragmatics of natural language in which the structure of discourse utterances is viewed as deriving, not from primarily syntactic or semantic criteria, but from the functional requirements of efficient communication in context. The recorded -Conversational speech of Edinburgh Scottish English speakers is analysed to determine whether intonational criteria, as suggested by Halliday (1967), can be taken as the formal features which define the organisation of information in spoken discourse. it is proposed that intonational cues are only a partial, and unreliable, guide to information structuring. A detailed examination is then presented of a corpus of spoken data elicited in a situation in which several parameters relating to the nature of information transfer were controlled. As a result, a comprehensive description of the linguistic realisation of information structure elements is provided. This leads to a reconsideration of conversational data and the ways in which elements in the information structure of messages interact and are influenced by larger structuring processes in the organisation of conversational contributions. Conclusions from the investigation are presented along with suggestions for continuing the research

Easterner, Vol. 30, No. 21, April 5, 1979

This issue includes articles about a delayed vote by the Washington state legislature on a tuition increase, the establishment of a student employee review board arising from grievances against a Dressler Hall residence advisor, a talk at Eastern by Eldridge Cleaver, the winners of the Easterner\u27s poetry and photography contest, the forensic team trip to the national debating championship, and Indian Awareness Week events,https://dc.ewu.edu/student_newspapers/1495/thumbnail.jp

A multimodal approach to persuasion in oral presentations : the case of conference presentations, research dissemination talks and product pitches

Esta tesis presenta un estudio multimodal y etnográfico del uso de estrategias persuasivas en tres géneros orales: presentaciones en conferencias, charlas de divulgación científica, y presentaciones de productos. Estos géneros comparten un importante componente persuasivo: los tres se dirigen a una audiencia tratando de convencerles del valor de un producto, servicio, o investigación. Sin embargo, se usan en dos contextos profesionales diferentes: el académico y el económico, por lo que cabe esperar que consigan su propósito comunicativo de forma diferente. Por otra parte, recientes estudios muestran como distintos discursos, tienden a adoptar cada vez más rasgos promocionales (promocionalización del discurso). En vista de ello, es factible establecer como hipótesis que los tres géneros están relacionados interdiscursivamente, y un estudio multimodal y etnográfico del uso de la persuasión en dichos géneros puede ayudar a clarificar las relaciones existentes entre ellos, así como sus diferencias.This thesis is a multimodal and ethnographic study of the use of persuasive strategies in three oral genres conference presentations, research dissemination talks and product pitches. These presentations share a strong persuasive component in their communicative purpose: the three of them address an audience to convince them of the value of a product, a service or a piece of research. However, they are used in business and academia by different discourse communities in different contexts, and therefore they can be expected to achieve their communicative goals in different ways. In addition, research suggests that there is a trend towards promotionalization of different discourses, among which academic discourse is included. In view of this, I hypothesize that these three genres are intertextually and interdiscursively related, and that a multimodal and ethnographic study of the use of persuasion in them can help to shed some light on these relationships and differences