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Zulassungsarbeit
Englisch

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München - LMU

1, Prof. Dr. Schmid, 2013

Andrea S. ©
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Fakultät für Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft

Englische Philologie


Zulassungsarbeit


zur wissenschaftlichen Prüfung für das Lehramt an Grundschulen in Bayern.


How to Do Things with Words Down Under:

A Variational-Pragmatic Study of

Australian English


Angefertigt bei Prof. Dr.


Vorgelegt von:


2013

ERKLÄRUNG ZUR URHEBERSCHAFT


Ich erkläre hiermit, dass ich diese Arbeit selbstständig verfasst und keine anderen Hilfsmittel als die angegebenen benützt habe. Die Stellen der Arbeit, die anderen Werken dem Wortlaut oder dem Sinn nach entnommen sind, sind in jedem einzelnen Fall unter Angabe der Quelle als Entlehnung kenntlich gemacht. Das Gleiche gilt für Zeichnungen, Kartenskizzen und bildliche Darstellungen.


Garmisch-Partenkirchen,…….……. …………………………

(Unterschrift)


Table of Contents


List of Abbreviations


CCSARP – Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project

DCT - Discourse Completion Task

FTA – Face Threatening Act

H - Hearer

IFID – Illocutionary Force Indicating Device

RP – Received Pronunciation

S – Speaker

S1 – Situation number 1


List of Figures



List of Tables



List of Appendices


Appendix A: Questionnaire used in the Australian English Survey…………………- I -

Appendix B: Results of the Australian English Survey……………………………. - V -

Appendix C: Questionnaire used in the American English Survey………………- XIII -

Appendix D: Results of the American English Survey…………………………- XVI -


1 Introduction

Pragmatics, an important and relatively young branch of linguistics, is the study of language use in context. Whereas the syntax of a language describes the relationship between signs, semantics explains the relationship between signs and their meaning. Pragmatics on the other hand, the focus of this thesis, describes the relationship between signs and their users.

One important component of pragmatics is represented by the theory of speech acts, an utterance made by a speaker to a hearer in a certain context. It was originally developed by Austin (1975) and Searle (1969) in the second half of the twentieth century. Speech acts consist of various elements and can be classified into different subgroups of which one is of particular importance in this thesis: expressives.

These are speech acts which give an insight into the psychological state of the speaker, for example expressions of gratitude or congratulations. An important type of expressives, and simultaneously the focus of this study, is the speech act of apologies, in which sorrow or regret is expressed.
This paper, a variational-pragmatic study, will investigate the language used in context between speakers of two different varieties of a language more precisely, the speech act of apologies in two different varieties of English: Australian and American English, will be thouroughly examined and analyzed.

Australian English has developed into an important regional epicenter of English, i.e. it forms a standard for a regional variety of English in competition with British and American English. From phonology over lexicology and syntax, Australian and American English have already been investigated and compared thoroughly. However to date, the linguistic area of pragmatics has often been neglected when investigating differences between the two varieties of English.
The basis to compare Australian and American English on a pragmatic level was first constituted by the study of Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Patterns (CCSARP).

This international project investigated the speech acts of requests and apologies in the 1980s. It was the most prominent research project in the area of inter-language and cross-cultural pragmatics and included the language and language varieties of British English, American English, Australian English, Danish, Hebrew, German, Canadian French and Russian. The project was established on a large scale, but particular focus was placed on similarities and differences between native and non-native speakers’ realization patterns of apologies.One particular constraint of the project was that it ignored the aspect of variational pragmatics, e.g. a comparison between Australian and American English.

In other words, findings to the individual varieties of English were rarely published and never publicly compared.
Therefore, the present study concentrates on this gap in the research area of pragmatics. In this thesis, the speech act of apologies will be directly compared between Australian and American English. To accomplish this, questionnaires of the original Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project were distributed among 50 native Australian English speakers and 50 native American English speakers.

The questionnaires were decoded according to a specific coding scheme outlined in CCSARP coding manual. Next the questionairres were individually analzed, and finally the findings were compared.
Australian English has a continually increasing impact as an independent variety of English. It is a codified and socially accepted variety, and has numerous dictionaries and teaching materials available.

Therefore, this independency should also be appararent on the pragmatic level among Australian English speakers. As an outcome of this explorative study, it is anticipated that some differences in the language used in context between Australian and American English speakers will appear.
This thesis is organized as follows: First a description of English as a pluricentric language will be given, followed by a historic overview of the establishment and development of Australian English.

This thesis will continue with some theoretical insights about the linguistic subject of pragmatics and pragmatic politeness and, in doing so, the linguistic notion of face as well as face work are described. Next, the theories of speech act as well as the specific speech act of apologies will be presented, followed by an introduction into the topic of variational pragmatics.

The project on which the study is primarily based upon, the CCSARP, is then introduced and the social factors taken under consideration are presented. An explanation of the way the collected data of the study is coded is followed.
In this study, , the instrument of the Discourse Completion Task and the questionnaire will first be introduced. Second, the Australian and American English samples are presented and the procedure of data collection and evaluation will then be described.

Next, findings to the varieties will be presented separately, first by identifying the results of Australian English questionairres? and then subsequently presenting the findings on American English questionaiees. Next will follow an elaborate comparison of the speech act of apologies between the two varieties. Finally, conclusions from the findings of the comparison will be drawn and the kind of difficulties which were encountered while employing the method of the CCSARP, i.e. the situations and coding scheme from the C.....

At first glance, this is surprising since a large part of the convicts were of Irish origin. Taking a closer look however, it is possibly due to the fact that the south-eastern dialects were represented more frequently and had higher prestige, therefore playing a larger role in early Australian English (cf. Kiesling 2006: 76). Leitner (1996: 220) further states that the process of hybridization was completed with the first generation of native-born Australians in 1830. This period can be assigned to the first phase of foundation, which according to Schneider’s definition is when dialect or language contact and koinéization took place as well as the beginning of borrowing terminology and toponymic expressions from native languages (cf.

Fritz 2007:13).
Leitner (1996: 220) also emphasizes that with the emergence of specific register, e.g. the language of the gold miners, the Australian character of the English language spoken expanded upon the mixed dialects. Vice-versa, Kiesling (2006: 76) claims that the increase of migration, due to the Australian gold rush, gave Australian English a new character and lessened the founder effect.

New specific vocabulary was borrowed from the language of the Aborigines as well as numerous non-English languages, such as German or Italian, which were present at that time (cf. Leitner 1996: 220 ff.). These statements correspond with Schneider’s second phase, exonormative stabilization, in which language norms still derive from the mother country, although it became possible to recognize the first `Australianisms´.

This borrowing of words was extended to several expressions ranging from flora, to fauna, as well as to other cultural terminology (cf. Fritz 2007:13).
In 1901, Australia became a nation. During this time, RP was still viewed as the norm and other local dialects were generally compared against it. However, it was also in this period, during the early twentieth century, that national identity as well as linguistic identity seemed to arise (cf.

Kiesling 2006: 76). This period is described by Schneider as his third phase: nativization, which is said to be the most central and vibrant. The nativization period is characerized by the previous extensive language contact, which led to “accomodation, simplification and levelling” as well as the emergence of a local accent (Fritz 2007: 13).
It was only in the second half of the 20th century that Australian English was finally viewed as a national variety in its own right, separated from that of Great Britain.

It was also in this period that the recognition of internal variation as well as sociolinguistic differences emerged. These changes began to occur in Australia when linguistic diversity expanded, partly dye to the large immigration waves from around the world since the 1960s. The emergence of dictionaries, such as the Macquarie Dictionary4, finally codified the local varieties as standards.

This constitutes the fourth and fifth phases of Schneider’s dynamic model of the evolution of new Englishes, endonormative stabilization as well as differentiation, in which the local variety was fully established, investigated by scholars and codified in dictionaries or grammars, and sociolinguistic differences have emerged. In these phases, the variety became acceptable in formal and written contexts, and according to Fritz (2007: 14), it was in these phases that English in Australia developed into Australian English.
Today, Australian English is a codified and socially accepted variety of English.

The number of Australian dictionaries, teaching materials and language policy statements has increased considerably and language teaching activities are dynamically supported by the government. Australian English is accepted as a feasible alternative to American and British English in the Pacific region (cf. Leitner 1992: 208). Quirk et al. summarizes it with the following words:

Australian English is undoubtedly the dominant form of English in the Antipodes and by reason of Australia’s increased wealth, population and influence in world affairs, this national standard (…) is exerting an influence in the northern hemisphere. (Quirl et al. 1985: 21)

Hence, Australian English has developed into an important regional epicenter5 of the English language (cf. Leitner 1996: 218). It is now a standard for the regional variety of English in competition with British and American English and the features that are shared by Australian as well as New Zealand English are included in this variety (cf. Kiesling 2006: 84).
According to Leitner (1996: 219), there is an outwards and inwards dimension to limitations of an linguistic epicenter: the outwards dimension delimits Australian English from other epicenters, therefore the distinctive attributes of Australian English are highlighted which circumscribe it from other epicenters such as American or British English.

The inwards dimension eliminates different forms of English within Australia which do not belong to Australian English.
For a future perspective, Kiesling (2006: 84) also sees changes in progress in Australian English, with ethnicity playing a large role. He claims that speakers with a Greek or an Italian background in particular are leading changes. Additionally, further internal stratification and differentiation is predicted by Schneider (cf.

Schneider 2003:167).

In semiotics, the subjects of study are viewed from three different angles and therefore constitute three different sub-disciplines: syntax, which is the relation between signs; semantics, which is the relation between signs and their meaning, and finally pragmatics, which is the relation between signs and their users (ibid.).
It has already been established that on the level of phonology or syntax, Australian English has developed into an independent variety of English apart from American and British English.

However, to my knowledge, no such evidence has been given so far at the pragmatics level. Hence, the current study will attempt to find evidence that the development of Australian English as an independent variety of English has also taken place on the pragmatics level. Therefore, the main focus of this thesis will lie on the study of linguistic performance, i.e. pragmatics, the study of language use in context.

However, before this can be analyzed, it is necessary to present the corresponding concepts of pragmatics.

3.2 Speech Acts

3.2.1 The Theory of Speech Acts

The two most important theories of pragmatics include the Theory of Conversational Implicature and the Theory of Speech Acts. The latter was established by Austin (1975) and Searle (1969). In order to find out whether Australian English developed as an independent variety on the pragmatic level, it is necessary to investigate the realization patterns of speech acts.

Therefore, in this thesis, the center of attention is placed on speech acts.
A speech act is defined as the basic unit of verbal interaction; an utterance made by a speaker to a hearer in a certain context. However, not the syntactic or semantic properties are most important to a speech act, but rather the speaker’s communicative intention – the illocution (cf. Kortmann 2005: 231).

According to Austin (Austin 1975: 92), producing an utterance mainly consists of four main acts: the locutionary act, the illocutionary act, the illocutionary force and the perlocutionary act.
The
locutionary act consists of simply producing any meaningful linguistic expression (cf. Yule 1996: 48). It is the mere performance “of saying something in the full normal sense” (Austin 1975: 92).

Austin (ibid.) divided the locutionary act into a phonetic, phatic and rhetic act. The phonetic act is the simple uttering of certain noises, i. e. the production of linguistic sounds. Furthermore, the phatic act is the performance of an utterance which is formed after the vocabulary, grammar and intonation of a specific language. Finally, the rhetic act is the performance of an utterance which has a “certain more or less definitive ‘sense’ and a certain more or less definitive ‘reference’ (which together are equivalent to meaning)” (Austin 1975: 92 ff.).
When carrying out a
locutionary act, generally an illocutionary act is performed at the same time.

The illocutionary act relates to the function that is borne in mind by forming an utterance (cf. Yule 1996: 48). In other words, the illocutionary act is what the speaker intends to do by an utterance, such as to give assurance or to produce a request, an order or an apology (cf. Fuentes-Mascuñana 1998: 7). Therefore, an illocutionary act is “doing something in .....

Table 2: Overview of Searle’s Distribution of Speech Acts in reference to Austin’s Theory of Speech Acts (cf. Meyer 2007: 30)

However, it would go beyond the scope of this thesis to further discuss the different models on the theory of speech acts. Altogether, as is clearly observable from the table, Austin and Searle seem to agree on the basic concept of the illocutionary act which is the most important in this thesis. As it can also be deduced from table 2, Searle classifies the illocutionary acts with its communicative intentions into five subgroups: Representatives, Declarations, Directives, Commissives and Expressives.

These will be discussed in detail at this point.

3.2.2 Speech Act Classifications

Illocutionary speech acts can be classified into different subgroups which demonstrate the communicative purpose behind them. Representatives, one of these subgroups, are speech acts which describe the world (cf. Kortmann 2005: 232). The speaker claims what he or she believes to be the case, expressed through e.g. assertions, swearing, conclusions or descriptions (cf.

Yule 1996: 53).
Another subgroup consists of Declarations, which are speech acts that bring about a new external situation, i.e. they change the world with their utterance (cf. Kortmann 2005: 232). According to Fuentes-Mascuñana (1998: 8), the speaker causes a correspondence between the propositional content of the utterance and reality when a declaration is expressed.

Generally, the speech act requires certain extra-linguistic institutions or legal settings (cf. Kortmann 2005: 232).
Directive speech acts are used to cause the hearer to carry out a particular action by simultaneously expressing what the speaker wants; e.g. orders, commands or requests. Finally, Commissives are speech acts in which the speaker commits himself to a future action by expressing what he or she intends to do in the future, such as promises, threats or refusals (cf.

Yule 1996: 53 ff.).
In addition to Representatives, Declarations, Directives or Commissives, speech acts can be classified into one further category: Expressives. These are speech acts in which the speaker expresses what they feel. They are all about the speaker’s experience, feelings and opinions; the psychological state is uttered. An example of an Expressive could be the act of thank.....

3.3.2 Pragmatic Politeness: Positive Politeness vs. Negative Politeness

Solidarity-based positive politeness is oriented towards the positive face of the addressee. It emphasizes shared attitudes and values as well as common ground between two people (cf. Holmes 2001: 268). It presupposes solidarity and cooperation (Olshtain & Cohen 1989: 59). According to Wardhaugh (1998: 272), there are certain positive politeness strategies, such as when to give a compliment or offer friendship in order to achieve solidarity.

Positive politeness is in many respects a simple representation of the linguistic behavior between friends. This association to intimate language shows that positive politeness is not only effective for face-threatening acts, which are described in detail in the following section, but also used as a general social mediator signalling that the speaker desires a more intimate relationship (cf.

Brown & Levinson 2002: 62 ff.).
By contrast, avoidance-based negative politeness is oriented towards a desire to maintain social distance, unimpeded freedom of action, independency and lack of imposition (cf. Olshtain & Cohen 1989: 59). Additionally, negative politeness pays people respect, avoids intruding onto them; and often leads to deference, apologizing, indirectness and formality in language use (cf.

Wardhaugh 1998: 272, Holmes 2001: 268). It also has the function to minimize a face-threatening act (FTA). Although a direct statement generally does not have a diminishing effect on a face-threatening act, in some situations the somewhat faster manner of “getting-to-the-point” can minimize a threat to the face in formal situations (cf. Brown & Levinson 2002: 62 ff.). The notion of face-threatening acts as well as face-saving acts will be explained in the following sections.

3.3.3 Face-Threatening Acts vs. Face-Saving Acts

With a certain utterance, a speaker can threaten the face of a hearer, i. e. it can threaten expectations with regard to the self-image. This is known as a face-threating act (cf. Yule 1996: 61). Brown & Levinson state that if acts “run contrary to the face wants of the addressee and/or of the speaker” (Brown & Levinson 2002: 65), they threaten face.

Face threatening acts can be categorized into two classes:

  1. acts that primarily threaten the hearer’s (H) positive or negative face,

  2. acts that threaten the speaker’s (S) p.....

The concept of face is predominatly related to Western or even Anglophone cultures, because it places the individual rather than the group into the center of attention. It is particularly the negative face, the right of independency and lack of imposition, which does not exist to the same extent in other cultures (cf. Placencia & Bravo 2002: 12). However, even though not all propositions by Brown and Levinson apply equally to all cultures, it seems useful within context of the investigation of Anglophone cultures.

3.4 The Speech Act of Apologies

3.4.1 Characteristics of the Speech Act of Apologies

Generally speaking, a speech act of apology follows an offense or violation of certain social norms (cf. Tanaka et al. 2000: 76). Spencer-Oatey states that

apologies are typically post-event speech acts, in the sense that some kind of offense or violation of social norms has taken place. In other words, people’s sociality rights have been infringed in some way (…), and there is a need to restore the `balance´ through giving an apology (Spencer-Oatey 2000:18).

According to Coulmas (1981: 70 ff.), apologies are speech acts that are often performed comparatively in daily life. They do not seem to be important with regard to information exchange, but they are rather significant on the level of interpersonal relationships to restore the equilibrium between the person apologizing and the person who has been offended (cf. Holmes 1995: 155).

Furthermore, every society and culture has its own particular values and manners that point out the rules for apologizing and which routinized or specific patterns should be employed in a certain situation. Generally, the members of a certain society know precisely when to make use of the speech act of apology and usually also how to appropriately carry it out (cf.

Coulmas 1981: 70). It should also be noted that an apology always involves two participants, the offended person and the person apologizing The speech act only takes place when the offender perceives himself as the apologizer (cf. Fuentes-Mascuñana 1998:9). In addition, the speech act of apology always presupposes an anteceding intervention as a rationale of the performance (cf.

Coulmas 1981: 71). Apart from belonging to the category of Expressives, the speech act of apology can also be subjected to another classification: apologizing can be face-sav.....


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