2014-06-18
Per Linell
Distributed Language Theory, dialogism and linguistic
meta-theory
Paper presented at the International Conference on ”Finding Common Ground: Social, Ecological, and Cognitive
Perspectives on Language Use”, University of Connecticut at Storrs, June 12, 2014
1. Interactivities in Distributed Language Theory and Dialogical Theories
The purpose of this paper is to discuss a few aspects of the similarities and differences
between Distributed Language Theories (DLT; Cowley et al., 2010; Cowley, 2011) and
dialogism (”dialogical theories”; Linell, 2009). This reflects a discussion which I am
currently having together with Sune Vork Steffensen (Linell, 2013; Steffensen, forthc.;
Linell, forthc.). At the end, I will also summarise some points of a meta-theory of
language, which will substitute many dogmas in dominant structuralist and generativist
theories of language. This theory, or rather: meta-theory, will assume that language is
based on languaging rather than language systems.1
The similarities between DLT and dialogical theories, their ”common ground”, comprise,
among other things, the central role of human interactivity in life and sense-making, the
distributed nature of sense-making and meaning-making, the central role of actionperception cycles in sense-making, the primordial status of languaging over secondorder language systems, the heterogeneity of languages, the emergence (and reemergence in new generations) of languaging and language from other semiotic
practices, and undoubtedly many others.
However, here I will focus more on some possible differences between DLT and
dialogism. One point concerns assumptions about interactivities and their statuses
within the theories. I will distinguish between classical dialogism and extended
1
Ppt on language vs. languaging.
dialogism (or a broader view on interactivities). Let us differentiate between at least
three positions:
(1) Distributed Language Theory: this is largely based on organism – environment
theory, according to which the single organism (or subject, system) and its umwelt (with
its objects, processes, artefacts etc.) mutually determine each other. That is, the outer
environment does not simply function as stimuli for the organism´s reactions and
responses, but the organism has capacities to actively search for information and sense,
especially through action-perception cycles. At the same time, there is no special place in
DLT for the interaction between self and other sense-makers (”the other”).
(2) Classical dialogism (e.g. Bakhtin; Marková 2003 etc), which is defined by its
emphasis on the Self – Other relations. Self (the participant in current focus) is
interdependent with Other(s) in all sorts of sense-making, in direct or indirect
interactions.2 In addition, there is, in classical dialogism, often an emphasis on language
(or other symbolic means).
(3) Extended dialogism, based on the interactivities between both the subject (the
sense-maker in current focus) and the objects, artefacts etc in the environment, and
between the subject and other sense-makers. Essentially this amounts to an integration
of (1) and (2).
Why would a dialogist (like myself) prefer (3), i.e. both (1) and (2), to just (2)? Well,
because self-other interaction is intertwined with, and partially emerges from, a broader
organism-environment interaction. More specifically, we need other-interdependence (2)
as a necessary assumption in the theory of language/languaging, (and therefore more
generally in) communication, cognition etc. But people are also involved in an extended
interactivity with the ecosocial world (1) in general, and we need this in the language
Note that this self-other interdependency holds not only for direct interaction (as in a
conversation or direct bodily interaction) but also for solo thinking, or the activities of
the lone writer or reader. One may make a distinction between meaning-making, which
would involve (partially) conscious or accountable use of conventional signs (e.g.
language) and the more general phenomenon of sense-making, which may also include,
for example, sensory (ap)perception.
2
sciences too, because it is necessary in the explanation of the development and
maintenance of many aspects of language itself (aspects of language emergent from
interaction with the world/Umwelt we live in).
As already suggested, processes and practices of languaging are (logically and
genetically) prior to language systems (cf. Thibault, 2011: first-order languaging vs.
second-order language systems). But second-order languages are real too; as Thibault
(op.cit.: 219) points out:
”Second-order language is no less real than the dynamical properties of first-order
languaging, though it exists on a different spatiotemporal scale as a set of virtual
patterns – a structured space or contrast set of cultural possibilities that defines and
constrains the sociocognitive interactive capacities andtendencies of a population of
agents.”
In all the theories of (1), (2), and (3), interactivities are essential, rather than derived
(there is an intrinsic relation, rather than extrinsic, relation between the parties and the
interactions as a whole). For example, Gibson´s (e.g. Gibson, 1979) affordance theory of
perception, an example of (1), the affordances (sense potentials) of objects in the
environment are realised only if there is a perceiver making situated sense of them.
Theories of category (1), without the dialogical self-other interdependencies, and with
the single organism/subject as the dependent perceiver, are the dominant way of
thinking across human sciences:

Transfer theories (monologism): inducer of reaction >> reaction

Phenomenology: Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Thompson (2007)

Organism-environment theories, e.g. von Uexküll, Maturana, Varela, and input
from these in Thompson

Linguistic pragmatics: e.g. Benveniste, Searle, Grice etc

Interactionist neurobiology: Damasio

DLT
But let us look at things from the point of view of self-other interdependence: Is (1)
really part of dialogism? Well, there are different dialogical theories. (The exact
terminological or conceptual demarcation of `dialogism´ is not the important issue in
this context.3 But it is clear that (2) is only one part of the subject´s interaction with the
ecosocial world, part of interactionism. In my view, the core of (claassical) dialogism (2)
must be compatible with interactionism in general, i.e. (1). If dialogism only deals with
linguistic interactions between people, we run the risk of segregating language from its
contexts (cf. Harris 1997). Ecumenical dialogism (Linell, 2009) allows for both (2) and
(3), and other variants, which amounts to a special theoretical stance. (But note that DLT
is not homogeneous as a general framework either.)
In other words, interactionism (and `extended dialogism´) covers both interaction
between self´s minded body/embodied mind and others (with their minded bodies), and
its interactivities with objects (including artefacts) and processes in the ecosocial world
(which includes the cultural world with its social norms, preferences and probabilities).
From now on I will deal, in this presentation, with two points (apart from the new metatheory of language), one of which (all?) dialogists agree upon (the otherinterdependence), and one which they disagree (should we have (2) or (3) within the
framework?)
2. The other-interdependence in interaction
This point concerns the presence of others in the individual´s communication and
cognition. Recall that this applies to both direct and indirect interaction, from overt
socio-dialogue to solo thinking, silent individual reading and lone writing (the latter will
contain more of unidirectional dependencies, but they are still other-(inter)dependent
(Linell, 2009).
3
On different dialogical and dialogue theories, cf. Linell (2014c).
Here I will give only examples of the role of other-dependencies among parties to a
conversation.4
2:1: Utterances are not the context-independent products of autonomous
speakers
(#1) Reported speech and affinity between adjacent utterances: What a speaker
chooses to say at a given point of a conversation is usually heavily dependent on what
other speakers have just said. The new speaker often uses some of prior speakers´ actual
wordings. The most obvious case is probably that of reported speech, by which the
speaker directly or indirectly reports what somebody else has said. (A classical
treatment of reported speech as evidence of dialogicality is Voloshinov (1973.) But the
quoting of others´ thoughts and utterances is much more extended than just reported
speech. The new contribution is often provoked by a prior utterance and the contextual
resources actualised by that (or by the affordances of the surrounding situation).
The ”power of dialogue” to reproduce itself lies in this: A produces an utterance, which
provokes a response from B (B chooses to attend to some aspects of the linguistic and
contextual resources of A´s utterance), which in turn provokes another contribution by
A, etc. As a consequence, contributions to a sequence of interaction with two or more
participants are interlinked. There is a tendency for participants to reuse (recycle) the
others´ (and their own) words with variation (Anward, 2014); there is `resonance´ or
`affinity´ (Du Bois, 2009) between utterances. (Cf. the notion of `priming´ in
psycholinguistics.) That is, a speaker may repeat some of the other´s words, in lexicogrammatically the same or similar form but often prosodically reaccentuated (Bakhtin).
An example from Du Bois (op.cit.: 11):
(1) (Deadly Diseases SBC015) (from a psychotherapy session? CHECK!)
1. Lenore: so your mother´s happy now.
2.
(0.2)
See also Linell & Mertzlufft (2014). One may perhaps think of the three groupings
below as building on the properties of sequentiality, joint action and partial holism
(larger units of discourse than only singular ”speech acts”), respectively.
4
3. Joanne: .hh my mother´s never happy.
4.
[my mother wouldn´t be happy if] everything was g-
5. Lenore: [excuse me hhh ]
6. Joanne:
hrmm everything was great, and everything is
7.
great.
Such inter-turn links may be used to emphasise agreement and consensus, or difference
and competition (depending on co-texts and prosodies, among other things). In terms of
M. Goodwin´s (1990: 177ff.) related notion of `format tying´, the partial repetition of
others´ utterances is used mainly for competitive purposes (Goodwin is particularly
concerned ritual insults among young Black girls).
By way of conclusion, theories of interactivity tend to emphasise co-action or joint
action. The question ”Who came up with the idea?” can often not be given an individualbased answer.
[OTHER EXAMPLES : STOLEN: lines 17, 19; ; BBGun: gun, lines 9, 11, 14, 16, 20, 22;
really long one, lines 25, 27, 32, 34, 37; drama (only B) lines 48, 57, 59, 62. See
Appendices.]
#2: Responsivity and projectivity between adjacent utterances:
The affinity between adjacent utterances is a consequence of the responsivity of
utterances; an utterance is made relevant as a response to prior contributions
(responsivity). (Of course, speakers can also abruptly introduce new topics. But in such
cases the new topic is often somehow ”near at hand” in the specific situation
(encounter), or the speaker must mark it specifically as a new topic.)
We can see that utterances have external relations both to prior actions (responsive
relations) and to possible next actions (projective or anticipatory relations). However,
the relative strength of responsive and projective relations can vary. Also, responsive
and projective properties may also be built into grammatical constructions of the
language system; we may talk about `responsive´ or `projective´ constructions, and some
constructions have both these external relations at the same time. As an example of a
responsive construction, consider Swedish x-och-x (Linell & Mertzlufft, 2014):
(2) Swedish x-och-x: Transcribed from a trailer for an upcoming series (March, 2007) of
talk-shows on Swedish state television (Carin tjuett å tretti `Carin 21.30´) to be led by a
well-known journalist, Carin Hjulström; S = speaker voice, C = Carin Hjulström)
1 S: Carin tjuett å tretti (.) e tibaka.
Carin twenty-one thirty (.) is back
2 C: tibaka å tibaka ja har ju vatt här hela tiden.
back and back (i.e. `back it depewnds on what you mean´)
I have PRT been here all the time
Utterances can provide affordances (Rommetveit, 1974: `message potentials´) for
several interpretations. Here, Carin picks up, in line 2, on two opposed interpretations of
her `being back´ in the S(peaker´)s line 1, i.e. that the specific program (`Carin 21.30´)
has been off the air for some time (something which makes line 1 situationally
adequate), vs. that she (referred to as `I´ in line 2) has appeared in other programs `the
whole time´ (something which makes line 1 more situationally inadequate). Precisely
this type of partial contradiction is the special function of the grammatical construction
we call x-and-x (Linell & Mertzlufft, 2014).5
[Projective constructions: Interrogative utterances constructed in specific ways project
specific kinds of `type-conforming´ (Raymond, 2003) responses. Other examples
(Appendices): responsivity: BBGun: lines 2<1, 4<3, 6<3/4, 9<1/7, 11 and 14 counterquestions or follow-up questions to l. 9;
Projectivity: BBGun; 1>2, 3>4, 11>12 etc]
#3: The dynamics of utterance-building: Internal dialogue within single turns and
utterances: Incremental production of utterances: The preceding point has a turn- or
utterance-internal counterpart. Utterance building is done incrementally, in a step-wise
Note, however, that S(peaker) talks about the specific program (`Carin 21.30´),
whereas C(arin) talks about her own person (`I´).
5
fashion, and is therefore analysable in terms of projectivity and fulfillment (or alteration)
of projections (Linell, 2013b; Günthner, 2011).6 This can be seen as an indication of a
speaker´s `internal dialogue´; the speaker orients to different positions (or `voices´), his
own, those of the other participants and those of others not even present.
Speakers often start their turns/utterances by light beginnings, or by repeating one or a
few of the other´s central words in a prior turn/utterance (Pickering & Garrod, 2013: 1).
Light beginnings are methods to start by postponing the choice of specific consequential
words or topics, for example, by using routinised expressions, such as well, it´s…, there
are…, I´d say… Later, the incremental nature of the speaker´s utterance-building also
allows the listener to follow the speaker in her piece-by-piece production of
associations, intentions and expressions. These methods facilitate the listener´s task of
following and comprehending the evolving utterance. The speaker´s seraching for
listener support is embodied in feedback elicitation strategies (#4 below). In the
utterance-building process there are certain ”decision points” where the speaker must
choose how to continue and the listener may provide feedback or butt in, that is, these
points are simultaneously ”response points” (Linell, 1998). In between, there are
routinised (automatised) solutions.
(3) Excerpt from STOLEN (lines 11-19)
11. M:
.hhh uh; (d) oh: did yer not in on what ha:ppen´. (hh (hh) (d)
12. T:
no(h)o=
13. M:
=he´s flying.
14.
(0.2)
15. M:
en Ilene is going to meet im:. becuz the to:p wz ripped
16.
off´v iz car which is tih say someb´ddy helped th´mselfs.
17. T:
stolen.
18.
(0.4)
19. M:
stolen.=right out in front of my house.
The incremental nature of utterance building has been foregrounded in, for example,
Clark´s (1996) theory of discourse contributions, CA-inspired on-line syntax (Auer,
2005, 2009; Linell, 2013b), Dynamic Syntax (Kempson et al., 2001) (based on formal
syntax and pragmatics), and studies of incremental processing (Rieser & Schlangen,
2011) using psycholinguistic experiments, computational models, corpus studies, and
more abstract grammar-to-dialogue models (Kempson et al., op.cit.).
6
Here, Marsha first realises that Tony does not yet know what happened their son Joey.
When she has given expression to this (line 11), she hesitates (hh (hh) (d)) before
continuing, and Tony provides a confirmation at this response point (line 12). Marsha
then informs him on what happened, beginning with line 13 and then continuing with
lines 15-17. Here, Tony passes on possible response points (cf. line 14).
One may depict the general process of building an utterance by means of an abstract
schema of the following kind:7
(4) The decision process in utterance-building
Utterance:
------
--------
pre-front
front field
field
DP1
DP2
pp
--------mid field
DP3
ppppp (Utterance pp (Subject;
topic)
Verb)8
---------------end field
DP4
-------------
--- etc.
post-completion
field
DP5
DP6
p (Obligatory ppp (Extra
ppp (new
complements)
add-ons)
TCU)
A schema like this refers mainly to main clauses. Furthermore, it cannot be valid for all
languages. Languages that prefer an SOV basic constituent order are, for example,
different (verbs come later). Among SVO languages, there is a difference between
Topic+Subject First languages (like English) and V2 languages (with the finite verb
second in the clause, and thus first in the mid field). In Topic+Subject First languages ,
the grammatical subject either occurs as Topic (in the front field) or, if the fronted
constituent is not the grammatical subject, the subject comes first in the mid field. In V2
languages the finite verb is always the second constituent (irrespective of which type of
constituent occurs in the front field); the verb appears as the first part of the mid field.
p = perturbation. This schema is influenced by work by, among many others, Clark &
Clark (1977) and Schegloff (1996), and for Swedish Lindström (2008). Note that the
schema is abstract, which means that there are many language-specific details that will
not fit without accommodating the schema.
8 Here, in cases where the grammatical subject is not fronted (in the front field),
Topic+Subject First languages have the order subject followed by verb in the mid field,
whereas V2 languages have the order finite verb followed by the subject in te mid fie
7
Some English examples?
In any case, utterances involve major ”decision points” (DPs), where the speaker has to
take decisions of how to continue. At these points, there are often signs of perturbations
(p above) (non-fluencies): micro-pauses, ”filled pauses” (hesitation items: uh, ehrm, um
etc.), repetitions (e.g. ”stuttering”), restarts, ”light” lexical items (typically: function
words, discursive particles). DP1 designates the point where the speaker-to-be decides
(to try) to take the turn (signalled by gestures, inbreath, lip smacks, etc.).9 This is often
followed by particles, dislocated elements etc. in the so-called pre-front field (cf. above
on ”light beginnings”). This is followed by DP2 where the speaker decides on the first
semantically heavy constituent, the utterance topic (often the grammatical subject)
(unless of course the speaker chooses to continue a current topic, in which case a
pronominal subject may be used). This belongs to the front field, the first part of what
can (sometimes) be seen as the ”inner clause”. The next decision (DP3) deals with the
choice of the verb (unless this is postponed by language-specific rules to the end of the
inner clause, or if the language is a SOV language). The verb is often a very strategic
choice, which determines what is to be the utterance´s ”comment” part and projects
much of the following complements (constituents expressing obligatory semantic roles,
such as objects, some obligatory adverbials etc.). With some closely associated
constituents, often sentence advervials etc., the verb makes up the mid field. The
obligatory complements, which of course also have to be chosen (cf. DP4) or are
otherwise specified (by ”pre-fabrication”) make up the end field. In German, this is
closed by the so-called right brace. Usually, the inner clause is then potentially
syntactically complete, but not necessarily pragmatically. Then, at DP5 (which can be
repeated recursively) the speaker must decide on extra (non-obligatory) constituents,
which (if they occur) make up a post-completion field (Schegloff). After this, at DP6,
there is again several options: to relinquish the turn or try to keep it, by starting on new
turn-constructional units (TCUs).10
Such signals may occur even before short responses.
When projections are altered utterance-internally (as a consequence of the
incremental production and the wish to continue the turn, rather than give up
speakership), the resulting utterance as a whole often looks deviant from the viewpoint
of conventional written language grammar. I have illustrated such phenomena in a
9
10
Gaze behaviour is also part of this interplay; in the beginning of turns and some TCUs
(”turn-constructional units”), speakers tend to avoid gaze contact, while they seek this
towards the ends of TCUs and at important pieces of information (strategic content
words). However, there are considerable interpersonal (and intercultural) variations in
this – speakers look at addressees more or less, due to personality traits and cultural
belonging as well as communicative activity types – but the general pattern is there.
Thus, speakers (and addressees) use gaze to coordinate activities of production and
comprehension.
It is important to observe that listeners too are extra active at main decision points,
especially at D1 (when possibly competing for the turn) and at DP5 and DP6 (completing
the speaker´s turn or competing for next turn). They then provide feedback (#4 below),
or perhaps make attempts to take over the turn. How this interplay is realised depends
very much on whether participants are in agreement or disagreement on current topics.
2:2: Synchronisation between speaker´s activities and addresseee´s activities:
#4: Feedback elicitation and giving:
Listeners produce feedback signals (listener support items, e.g. nods, verbal-vocal
micro-feedback like mm, yeah, no (agreeing) etc.) at structurally suitable points
(”response points”) in the speaker´s utterances, usually after important referring
expressions, whole clauses etc. Blöndal (2005), who studied micro-feedback in Icelandic
conversational story-telling, found that verbal-vocal micro-feedback was anticipated by
both speaker and listener (Lu, 2014: 48). ”When the listener utters for example mhm or
ja in a place that is inappropriate according to the storyteller´s anticipation, the
storyteller sometimes begins to repeat what he or she has just said before and then
continues the story” (ibid.: 48). The speaker, it seems, needs ”proper” feedback from
couple of specialised articles, on pivot utterances (Norén & Linell, 201), and declarative
sentences initiated by a negated phrase (Linell & Norén, 2014) in Swedish.
listeners (cf. the consequences of absence of feedback in telephone conversation). Ward
& Tsukahara (2000) , who studied ”back-channel communication”, i.e. listener´s microfeedback, found that such feedback ”was often cued, encouraged, or allowed by the
speaker, for instance, by means of low pitch and rising intonation” (Lu, op.cit.: 54). Lu
concludes that speaker´s prosody and listener´s micro-feedback are correlated.
Other devices that are useful in seeking and accomplishing intersubjectivity include
appendor questions (isn´t it? etc.) (Gillespie & Cornish, 2012: 30). These ”tag questions”
are feedback-eliciting devices (practices).
[Also verbal elicitations: BBGun lines 2, 21]
#5: Repair, especially ”third turn repair”: Repair in conversation is provided in order
to save participants from upcoming misunderstandings. Of special interest is perhaps
”third turn repair” (”third position repair”, also called ”repair after next turn”; Schegloff,
1992). Here a first-positioned utterance (by A) has been responded to by a secondpositioned utterance (by B) without any (”next turn” or ”second position”) repair
initiation, but when the first speaker A, after this response from B, discovers or suspects
that B has probably misunderstood her (A´s) first-positioned utterance and therefore
initiates repair in the third turn.
In (3) we meet two sisters in their fifties, Agnes and Portia, who recently missed several
opportunities to get together (i.e.they didn´t meet though they had wanted to). The
lengthy telephone conversation, from which (3) is taken, began with a comment by
Portia about another such failure. Now, consider line 3:
(3) I´M NOT ASKING YOU TO COME DOWN (NB; Schegloff, 1992: 1306; A = Agnes and P
= Portia)
1. A:
I love it.
2.
(0.2)
3. P:
well, honey? I´ll probably see you one a´these day:s.
4. A:
oh:: God yeah,
5. P:
[uhh huh!
6. A:
[we-
7. A:
b´t I c- I jis´[couldn´t git down [there.
8.
(4s)
9. P:
I´m not asking [yuh tuh [come dow-
10. A:
11.
[Jesus.
[I mean I jis´- I didn´t have
five minutes yesterday.
It may seem that Portia´s line 3 is possibly heard as an invitation to Agnes to drop in for
a visit. Agnes excuses herself (line 7), whereupon Portia (line 9) provides a third turn
repair. In other words, a `third-positioned´ response tries to remedy what seems to be a
misunderstanding on the part of speaker B (Agnes) in her second-positioned response
to A´s (Portia) first-positioned turn (the `trouble source´). Accordingly, parties to a
dialogue (at least sometimes) strive to establish some temporal intersubjectivity, i.e.
they determine the degree to which they mutually understand each other. This is a
”dialogical” process; it takes two to communicate.
[There is another incipient opportunity for misunderstanding in STOLEN above (lines
15-19, cf. Schegloff 1992: 1301).]
#6: Collaborative completion: The ability to complete the other´s utterance:
Next speakers often build continuations of prior speaker´s utterance/turn. Sometimes,
they take over the prior speaker´s utterance before it has reached a recognisable
completion. They then indulge in other-completion (or collaborative completion):
(4) STEAM (BNC, H5G: 177-179; Howes, 2012: 77)
1. A:
all the machinery was
2. G:
[all steam]
3. A:
[operated] by steam.
(5) SIXTH FORM STUDENTS (BNC, H5D: 123-127; Howes, 2012: 76; two members of a
school staff filling in a form?)
1. K:
I´ve got a scribble behind it, oh annual report I´d get that
from
2. S:
right.
3. K:
and the total number of [sixth form students in a division.]
4. S:
[sixth form students in a division.]
right.
In other-completions, the addressee complete the first speaker´s utterances slightly
before or simultaneously with the first speaker. However, the first speaker may also
leave an open slot for the other to fill in (Koshik, 2002; Howes, 2012: invited utterance
completions). Repetitions across contributions (`resonance´; #1) and other-completion
contributes to alignment between participants; they build coalitions or `parties´ among
participating persons (Howes, 2012).
(Third-turn) repair, micro-feedback and other-completion (all examples of feedback in
a wider sense) are examples of the fact that speaker´s and listener´s activities are closer
to each other than the transmission model of communication suggests.
The fact that continuations of utterances can be anticipated, due to projection, implies
that speaker and listener can process on-line utterance building and utterance
understanding partly in parallel.11 This synchronisation enables listeners to complete a
speaker´s utterance which is still in progress (collaborative, or competitive, completion),
or they can take over the turn immediately, without any lapse at all, after the previous
speaker´s turn completion (e.g. Lerner, 2002). The similarity between speaker and
listener may also be expressed by the listener (second speaker) in an utterance that
could just as well have been said by the first speaker, as in example (6) (translated from
a Swedish original):
(6) A is trying to find his way to a certain room in the departmental building, is asking a
colleague for help:
1. A: Where is the new lab °or whatever it´s called°?
2. B: ((pointing diagonally upwards)) it is up there to the right.
3. A: it´s so difficult for me to tell the floors apart.
4. B: yeah, all of them are so alike, aren´t they.
Here, B´s line 4 is in fact an explanation for A´s difficulty ”to tell the floors apart” (line 3);
it is an account that could have been said by A. B ”takes the perspective” of A. In STOLEN
11
See Howes (2012) and references there to the parallelism between these activities.
( excerpt 3 above), T explains in line 17 what M has meant (or disambiguates what M
may have meant) in line 16 (cf. Schegloff, 1996: ”confirming the allusion” of M). Such
synchronisations imply that speaker and listener often coordinate their activities on-line
in a truly dialogical way; these activities are not purely individual or mutually
independent.
So there is parity, but of course not complete identity between the speaker´s and the
listener´s predicaments and opportunities. By being the externally active in producing
publicly observable behaviours (utterances) the speaker takes an initiative. But the
listener is also active (e.g. in preparing responses), is often following the speaker closely,
from moment to moment in the course of events.
More examples could be given. But in place of a summary, a quote from Streeck & Jordan
(2009: 93) will suffice:
”Human beings shift posture together, take turns at talk without delay or overlap, and
sometimes complete sentences in unison. Researchers who study interaction under the
microscope have long been fascinated by phenomena such as behavioral synchrony,
entrainment, and choral speaking.”
The close relation between utterance production and comprehension explains ”the
fluency of dialog” (Pickering & Garrod, 2013: Article 238: 2).
2.3: Larger units and projects:
#7: Partial holism: Integration of utterances within larger semiotic and sensemaking activities: The interaction between linguistic gestures, visual gestures and
manipulation of objects has been highlighted by, among others, Ch. Goodwin (2000,
forthc.). An example is the accompaniment of physical (bodily) movements as the
practical performance (say, counting on fingers) of a cognitive task (counting). An
anecdotal example would be a child counting on her fingers how many friends have
been invited to her upcoming party.
#8: Utterances as contributions to local communicative projects: Utterances are not
autonomous speech acts (Searle), but done in the service of communicative purposes.
They are contributions to local communicative projects (e.g. Linell, 2009).
Utterances are conditionally relevant to prior utterances. For example, a question
projects some kind of answer, within the semantic-pragmatic confines set up by its
composition. The following utterance by the other is evaluated as being a relevant
response. Even the absence of a response is assigned significance. Thus, one´s silence
may have a meaning, due to what the other has done and what the situation demands.
The single participant does not control the meaning of his own utterance or his silence.
Let us looked at one of Schegloff´s (2007) examples:
(7) STALLED (MDE, 1:7-23, telephone conversation, Schegloff, 2007: 64; M = Marsha, D = Donny)
1. D:
guess what.hh
2. M:
what.
3. D:
.hh my ca:r is sta:lled.
4.
(0.2)
5. D:
(´n)I´m up here in the Glen.
6. M:
oh::.
7.
{(0.4)}
8. D:
{ .hhh}
9. D:
a:nd.hh
10.
(0.2)
11. D:
I don´t know if it´s po:ssible, but {(.hhh)/(0.2)} see
12.
I haveta open up the ba:nk.hh
13.
(0.3)
14. D:
a:t uh: (.) in Brentwood?hh=
15. M:
=yeah:- en I know you want- (.) en I whoa- (.) en I
16.
would, but- except I´ve gotta leave in aybout five
17.
min(h)utes. [(hheh)
This whole excerpt seems to be a communicative project of implicitly asking for help, an
indirect request (cf. line 1: `guess what?´). Already pre-sequence (1-3) is announcing a
more comprehensive project, and already line 3 announces the problem (Donny´s car
has broken down). There follows a short description of a difficult predicament (3-5).
Lines 9-14 describes the consequences of the accident for Donny. But Marsha is unable
to help and declines (lines 15-19), a declination which comes late and is only half-way
explicit. Donny does not get what he was asking for in his communicative project.
#9: Grammar and communicative genres/activity types (act–activity
interdependence):
The deployment of linguistic resources (lexical items, grammatical constructions) is
subject to activity-grammar interdependence: constructions, as entrenched patterns of
languaging, are characterised not only by their grammatical structures and local
pragmatic functions but also by their links to larger sequences and contexts,
communicative projects, communicative activity types (Linell, 2010) and communicative
genres (Günthner & Knoblauch, 1995). Such genres and activity types involve activities
with several moves, often by different participants. Indeed, they are socioculturally
defined, and call up patterns with a social history (Cowley, 2011: 195), which the
participants in situ can conform to or deviate fram (both of which will be consequential
for the ensuing responses).
Dialogical proposals would claim that utterances invoke contexts, and contexts shape
utterances (contexts are both shaping and renewed, ”double contextuality” (Heritage,
1984); discourse and context, expression and content, are mutually constitutive. Such
analytic reasonings are condemned by monologists as circular, but they are natural
since participants can operate on several time-scales, situated moment and activityprescribed practice (”double dialogicality”; Linell, 2009; 2014d). Such facts point to the
fact that participants in situ often orient to practices shaped by (generations of)
”predecessors” (Goodwin, forthc.; cf. peripheral others), who developed and established
communicative genres and activity types.
3. Interactivities in classical and extended dialogisms
Languaging involves participants´ actions and interactions, and their decisions taken at
various points within these activities. How then have the language sciences, especially
linguistics, accounted for this agency of participants? In a recent paper (Linell, 2014b) I
discussed different competing theories of language and languaging in relation to their
assumptions about participants´ agencies in ordinary situated languaging. We can
summarise these assumptions in Table 1:
Table 1.
Primary units and forces
1: Impersonal abstract
system
2: Impersonal brain
mechanisms
3: Utterance types in
language system
4: Situated utterances
5: Situated utterances in
sequences
6: Organism–environment
system (interbodily
dynamics)
Range of individual
decision-making
No theory (limited
agency?)
No theory (very peripheral
agency?)
Some: references, lexical
items, speech act types
Vast: as above (3), plus
(intended) indirect
meanings, implicatures
Decisions at selected
points, shared agency; also
automation
Some?
Examples of traditions
Saussurean structuralism
(Later Chomskyan)
generativism
Traditional grammar (?)
Some theories in linguistic
pragmatics
Enunciation theory
Dialogism
Distributed Language
Theory
Most of phenomenology
Interactional neurobiology
Here (1-2) are actually structuralist theories of language, and they do not have any
explicit theory of languaging. For example, Chomsky (2) has nothing to say about
languaging (in his early terminology: ”performance”). No explicit theory of situated
decision-making is formulated. Nonetheless, it is implicitly clear that the impersonal
systems or mechanisms are decisive, with very little space left for the individual speaker
to decide.
Agency is assigned to participants only in (3-5). In (3), here (for want of a better
characterisation) ascribed to ”traditional grammar”, linguistic units are seen as
utterance types. Despite what we now know about the non-sententially shaped
utterances in informal talk, the utterance units are still assumed to be mostly ”wellformed sentences”. However, since sentences are taken to be utterances, there is still an
opening for some individual decision-making, concerning reference, word choice and
speech act choice.
In the next variant (4) we find the emphasis on individual agency; the speaker alone is
the agent, while the recipients are at best subordinated. This is the clearest example of
intentionalism. Within this category, I would classify Searle´s speech act theory and
Grice´s theory of implicatures and his theory of sentence meaning vs. speaker´s meaning,
as well as the enunciation theory by Benveniste (1966, 1972) and others. These, and
many other contributions to linguistic pragmatics, take the speaker´s meaning-making
into account, but the theories are mainly individualistic in nature.
If we assume that individuals cannot exercise their agency independently of others in
the interaction, we must adopt a theory of limited ”participatory agency”. This is the
position of dialogism (5), which assumes that participants in communicative and
cognitive activities are human beings with agency (Linell, 2009; Bertau, 2011), but here
the agency and sense-making are shared, or better: partially shared, not only between
speaker and addressee but also with peripheral others (”third parties”; Linell, 2009).
Human agency is not exercised as an unconstrained power to carry out any kind of
action at one´s discretion independently of context. Rather, we are concerned with an
ability to act in contexts that set up physical and social boundaries. We may talk about
this as `participatory agency´, and it has to be ”limited” in various ways, within the
”wiggle-room” of participants in particular social situations. For example, with regard to
actual languaging and utterance-building, active individual agency could only account
for some aspects of the interaction. Therefore, theories that assume languaging to be
primary with respect to the language system, e.g. dialogist theories, run the risk of
assigning too much importance to the agency and decision-making of the participants
involved. In fact, many properties of our utterances, and responses to utterances ”come
to us” in increments (Linell, 2013b, and references above; cf. the schema (4) above) from
elsewhere; for example, many ideas, attitudes, opinions and understandings ”speak
through us”, rather than being freely chosen and expressed by us in each situated speech
situation. Other limiting factors are natural biologically induced predispositions (e.g.
articulatory movements are constrained by limitations (inertia) of the speech
apparatus), the subordination to strong cultural norms (e.g. taboo), automatisation of
socioculturally acquired patterns (automatised behavioural movements, sedimented as
patterns in spoken dialects), and improvisation (Breyer et al., 2011) or pure chance
(Streeck et al., 2011). In addition, we are interdependent with others´ actions, which
means that to a considerable extent we rely on their agency rather than exclusively on
our own. Yet, there is also decision-making and responsibility on the part of speakers
(and other participants), especially at certain ”decision points”, e.g. in utterance-building
(see (3) and discussion there). All in all, this provides a picture of a mix of stepwise
emerging intentions (Rieser & Schlangen, 2011: 7) and automatised (”mechanistic”)
parts (Pickering & Garrod, 2004).
We must therefore admit that the agencies are limited or circumscribed (section 6).
Speakers act in situated linguistic practices, in which they are languaging together with
others. Thus, the speaker´s own agency, her ability to decide on utterances, is partly
overridden by social interdependencies (the fact that we are faced with ”co-actions”,
rather than independent actions by autonomous individuals). In addition, large parts
can be, and are in fact, projected (Auer, 2005, 2009) and automatised, that is, while the
speaker can decide on some crucial points (in particular, ”decision points”, as in (4)),
many other properties of the utterance will follow automatically from routinised habits
of languaging (provided that the speaker is at ease and knows her language well). And
provided that she does not try to stop her fluency and inhibit the tendency to say what
can be culturally expected.
Present-day dialogism includes the account of utterances as embodied. Mentalism, and
assumptions of immaterial souls and spirits, agency, consciousness or abstract signs,
have increasingly come under attack. The necessary focus on interactivities (e.g. Linell,
2014a) has led to the recognition of intercorporeality (Streeck & Jordan, 2009; Csordas,
2008); we interact through our bodies (cf. Hoffmeyer, 2008) and thereby we are part of
the world. This idea of intercorporeality comes largely from the work of the French
dissenting phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1962,1964). This is (6) in Table 1.
Sometimes, people connect the ideas of intercorporeality to the term ”posthumanism”.
However, this term seems to cover several rather different theories. One of them
concerns the application of organism-environment theories (Maturana & Varela,
Hoffmeyer, Steffensen) to human interaction. We may feel that we are free, responsible
and conscious agents, but this is, according to this view, largely an illusion; we can have
feelings of agency, consciousness and thinking (Harnad, 2005), but this is presumably
just epiphenomena, not causally involved forces. We do not act by ourselves; languaging
is not actions, but rather ”events that just happen to us”. Thus, humanism would ascribe
something characteristically ”human” to people only on erroneous grounds; we are
simply subjected to interbodily dynamics, just like other animals.
Accordingly, in the discussions of bodies in interaction, there are currently partially nondialogist variants of interactivity (”intercorporeality”; Streeck & Jordan, 2009) that
apparently tend to minimise agency, sometimes even deny it. Organism-environment
theories (6) tend to look at the interaction between organism and environment, without
really assigning any role for sociodialogue (interaction between self and other) (Linell,
2013a). A majority of them seem to deny the partial uniqueness of self-other interaction,
and accordingly they focus on the interactivities of the single sense-maker (seen as
organism, self, perceiver, body) and the environment. As mentioned above (section 1),
DLT shares this attitude with several other – theoretically often quite different –
paradigms, such as linguistic pragmatics, phenomenology Maturana/Varela type of
biogenic theory, Donald´s theory of the co-evolution of the embodied mind and the
external culture, interactional neurobiology, etc. In other words, these theories (6)
support a view of languaging that goes against classical dialogism, in which symbols
(words), actions, meanings and accountabilities remain central.
Dialogism is centred around self-other interactivities; this is something which can not be
dispensed with, and the meta-theory then comes out as part of a tradition of humanities.
But many dialogists are also interested in self-environment interactivities, e.g. as
regards sensory perception (e.g. Linell, 2009: 415ff.), and they certainly acknowledge
the embodied nature of languaging. But from this dialogist point-of-view (cf. (5) in Table
1), the interacting bodies are minded bodies, not just (living) physical or biological
organisms. It seems reasonable to argue that the values, in particular, the situated
meanings created in human interactions and civilisations, are not so ”immaterial”,
”mental” or ”spiritual” as we have been told before, but instead part of material
processes. But we still ascribe semiotic affordances, meaning potentials, to the material
objects and processes involved in human meaning-making, and behind these potentials
are minded people. In Cowley´s (2011b) words (following Rączaszek-Leonardi, 2011),
language (languaging) is both ”dynamic” (interbodily) and ”symbolic”.12 We may add
that language is not only dynamical, material and situated, but it is also meaningful,
symbolically and historically constituted, concerned and moral (Putnam, 1978;
Rommetveit, 1991) etc. Having a mind is to have a sense-making ability, and this is what
created the human ecological niche, what makes us human. Language offers
opportunities to reflect on language itself, especially in literate cultures, and therefore it
provides a capacity to use language reflexibly, intentionally and accountably. Our
civilisation builds upon the assumption that we can hold people legally and morally
accountable for their doings.
Accordingly, dialogical theories cannot accept a total elimination of agency and
consciousness. But it seems undeniable that agency and consciousness do not have an
entirely sovereign status in the explanation of human behaviour, including
communication and cognition. We can not claim that languaging always involve a lot of
conscious decision-makings ”at all points”. We need a theory of ”limited agency” (section
6).13 The ideas of intercorporeality in DLT and elsewhere may have something to
contribute here.
Finally, it should be pointed out that the foci on interbodily dynamics vs. accountable
meaning-making may concern different aspects of multimodal languaging. There are
plenty of mirroring behaviours in postures, touch (e.g. hugging), facial expressions,
gestures, in some prosodies, and to some extent in the choice of similar vocabularies and
even grammatical constructions (cf. #1 in section 4) (Mehrabian, 1972). These mutual
mirrorings, which belong largely to the extra- and para-verbal aspects of languaging, do
of course embodily a lot of other-interdependence, and in that sense plenty of
I assume that Cowley and Rączaszek-Leonardi would not necessarily call themselves
posthumanists.
13 In addition, many neurobiologists also hold on to the need of a ”central planner” in
their theories of the brain (cf. discussion in Donald, 2008).
12
dialogicality and interactivity. They provide for some kinds of shared sense-making or
even communion, aspects which are shown rather than said. On the other hand, we have
the verbal (more strictly language-related) aspects of languaging that involve more of
conscious meaning-making, obligations of accountability and, arguably, agency too.
These are rather different aspects of dialogicality and intersubjectivity. So, the theories
of accountable meaning-making and intercorporeality may after all be compatible. On
the one hand, languaging involves automation and nonconsciousness, on the other
interbodily dynamics sustains actions and meanings.
4. The new language theory
If we wish to focus on language and languaging, we will find that a new collection of
theoretical assumptions now havet o be adopted, assumptions that go against the
theoretical foundations of most ”modern” approaches to language within linguistics and
also other language sciences. (Thus, if these points may seem well-established to the
present audience, they remain highly controversial in the discipline of linguistics.) Here
is a non-exhaustive list:
(i) Languaging is prior to language, and languaging is not just about the application of a
language system. Situated actions are primordial, rather than derivative.
(ii) Utterances are embodied (we can talk about an embodied mind (ability to make
sense) and a minded body), multi-modal, temporally distributed and socioculturally and
situationally embedded actions, rather than sequences of abstract forms. (Written
language is a different matter.)
(iii) Language/ing developed out of other partly pre-existing semiotic resources, in
phylogenesis as well as ontogenesis and sociohistorical genesis (Trevarthen, Donald,
Tomasello). This is of course not to deny that once people have mastered verbal
language in their spoken interaction and in writing, their language can reflexively
influence their cognitive and communicative achievements.
(iv) Language itself is not entirely sovereign in sense-making; it cannot express
everything.
(v) Other people are always directly or indirectly present in our sense-makings (cf.
above on the other-interdependence).
(vi) Interactivities are prior to intersubjectivities. Language is individual and collective
at the same time, and it is based on interactivities (social interactions between
individuals who are themselves social beings) (Linell, 2014a).
(vii) Participants in normal situated languaging can execute their own agency, but only
in limited ways.
(viii) Utterances in real, situated languaging only sometimes exhibit the forms of clauses
and sentences (as these have been described in sentence grammars). Many utterances
consists of ”fragments” and self-standing phrases (cf. ”prefabricated phrases”, ”ellipsis”;
Laury, 2008), grammatically inconsistent structures (e.g. pivot utterances; Norén &
Linell, 2013), etc. Grammatical processes in languaging cannot be adequately captured
in static (structuralist or generativist) models, but require a dynamic, temporally based
”on-line syntax” (Auer, 2005, 2009).
(ix) Like other levels of languaging, the phonetics of the vocal-tract behaviours requires
an action account. Oral-vocal language/languaging is about producing hearable sounds.
But the phonological unis are not abstract segment types, but phonetic events, or
articulatory gestures defined in terms of target values for their acoustic results (e.g.
Fowler, 1986).
(x) The situated meanings of utterances are always dependent on an interplay between
meaning potentials of linguistic resources (lexical items and grammatical constructions)
and contextual resources of various kinds. Even if we abstract utterance types
(”linguistic sentences”), their ”linguistic” or ”semantic” meanings can not be derived by
principles of compositionality (Linell, 2013b).
(xi) Traditional and modern linguistics have been subject to a Written Language Bias
(Linell, 2005), and dialogism perhaps to a Language Bias (Linell, 2009). It is not selfevident that (within a specific ”language”, such as English) interactional, oral languaging
and literate texts have the same underlying grammar.
(xii) Structuralism in both Europe and America has been limited in its explanatory
power: it started with idealised fully competent users´ systems, rather than with a
developmental perspective.
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