Using spoken corpora to investigate pragmatic variation Workshop on New Trends in Spoken Corpora...

Using spoken corpora to investigate pragmatic

variation

Workshop on New Trends in Spoken CorporaSantiago de Compostela

Brian Clancy, Mary Immaculate College, ~University of Limerick~

Pragmatics

• The study of interactional meaning…

• A man and a friend are playing golf one day. One of them is about to chip onto the green when he sees a long funeral procession on the road next to the course. He stops mid-swing, takes off his hat, closes his eyes and bows down on his knees in prayer. His friend says ‘Wow! That is the most thoughtful and touching thing I have ever seen. You truly are a kind man.’

• The other man replies ‘Yeah, well, we were married for thirty-five years.’

(Culpeper and Haugh, 2014: 4)

Corpus linguistics

• Modern corpora have made it increasingly possible to study pragmatic phenomena:

• Demographic information now almost standard in spoken corpora;• An increasing preoccupation with representativeness now allows us to study

variation across register, context-type, genre;• Annotation extremely useful for research into pragmatics;• Vertical reading allows for the processing of large datasets.

• Authentic data…

Pragmatics + Corpus Linguistics = Corpus pragmatics

• How the interpersonal is encoded in language – in routinised ways, looking for patterns and evidence (Clancy and O’Keeffe, 2015)

• Corpus linguistics is a sympathetic methodological companion (dare I suggest, revolutionary)

• Corpus pragmatic studies have added value:• Results are considered in context;• All sizes of corpora considered;• Instances of pragmatic annotation growing;• Highly iterative;• More nuanced…

Big ‘V’ and little ‘v’

• Question: What can corpus pragmatics tell us about language Variety and variety?

• Variety = defined geographically and ‘user’ related • variety = defined situationally and ‘use’ related

(Quirk, 1995; Clancy, 2010)

The Limerick Corpus of Irish English

• 1 million words of spoken Southern Irish English• Context-types = transactional; professional; pedagogical; socialising;

intimate• Demographic speaker information such as gender, age, birthplace,

occupation and level of education recorded

• Complemented by reference to ANC, BNC (and Baby), ICE-Ireland, LIBEL…

Data distribution in LCIE (%)

5626

5

12

1

Intimate

Socialising

Pedagogical

Professional

Transactional

Start with frequency…N BABY BNC LCIE

1 I the

2 you I

3 the and

4 it you

5 and to

6 a it

7 to a

8 that that

9 yeah of

10 oh yeah

11 in in

12 of was

13 no is

N BABY BNC LCIE

14 it’s like

15 well know

16 what he

17 on on

18 is they

19 have have

20 know there

21 one no

22 do but

23 was for

24 got be

25 we what

Keyword list

N Keyword1 am2 ah3 em4 ya5 like6 shure7 the8 laughing9 aam

10 umhum11 kind12 of13 laughs14 laughter15 was16 cause17 would18 ye19 um20 in21 now22 goin23 were24 Jesus25 and

LCIE list with BABY BNC as reference corpus

Keyword list

N Keyword1 ah2 am3 ya4 em5 no6 he7 shure8 laughing9 cos

10 aam11 she12 eh13 umhum14 laughs15 ye16 now17 laughter18 s19 d’you20 will21 mm22 Jesus23 muffled24 t25 there

LCIE list with ANC as reference corpus

Frequency information - shure

LCIE SPICE BNC

1277 310 1

Normalised per million words

Observations on shure

• Sure has a range of functions – both emphatic and indexical – and can be used to mark causality, mockery, contrast and consensuality (Amador-Moreno, 2010).

• Sure usually precedes an assertion; new information presented as old, indirectly requesting agreement (Kallen, 2006).

• This is used as a mitigator or hedge in initial position. Its most common pattern of use being but shure, used to soften the effect of but in the introduction of a counter point (O’Keeffe, 2011).

• Sure confirms presupposed knowledge – includes general knowledge, which is not the property of any specific individual in the conversation (Kallen and Kirk, 2012)

Now…

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT9xuXQjxMM

• Father Ted: The Passion of St Tibulus

• Rich pickings!

• Wierzbicka (1991: 341): ‘There are few aspects of any language which reflect the culture of a given speech community better than its particles.’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT9xuXQjxMM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT9xuXQjxMM

Oh are you now…

‘And most ominous of all, of course, is the apparently innocuous question followed by a comma and the adverb “now”. No feckless husband who declares that he is going to the pub can fail to notice the chill that descends on the room when his wife replies: “Oh are you, now?”’

(McNally, 2007)

Frequency list data (Clancy and Vaughan, 2012)

Corpus LCIE BNC

Position 30th 63rd

Frequency per million words

4860 2864

Now occurs in formal contexts...

• ‘The text types where we find the largest number of examples of now are more formal than ordinary conversation and contain more structure’ (Aijmer, 2002: 69).

• ‘...now is more likely [than well] to occur in formal contexts’ (Defour, 2008: 63).

Watching sport [hurling]…

Watching sport [hurling]...<$1> Come on Murphy. Oh keep it out. Aw no. Good man Fitz. Come on. Janey. Now.

Come on Wexford. Now come on Wexford. Come on Wexford. Now come on Wexford. Come on. Come on Wexford. Come on. Now. Have a shot. Now come on Wexford. Come on now Wexford. A point now. Come on Wexford. Come on Wexford. Come on. Come on. Go, go with it. Now. Shit. Come on Wexford. Come on Wexford. Come on. Come on Wexford. Come on. Come on Wexford. Come on. Great goal. Shit. Move it for God's sake. Now come on Wexford. Come on Wexford. Come on come on come on. Good man Bowe. Wexford be careful or you'll be put off. Now come on Wexford. Now come on. Now come on Wexford. Come on Wexford. Come on Wexford now. Come on now. Ehh. Now come on. Come on now Wexford. Come on Wexford. Come on. Come on Wexford. Steady up now. Steady up. Come on Wexford. Come on into him. Come on Wexford. Come on Wexford. Come on Wexford. Come on now. Come on now. Come on. Go with it.

<$2> Go on.

<$1> Go on Wexford. Ahh shit.

Formal versus informal

0

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

Intimate

Pedagogical

Professional

Socialising

11054 11097

Sample concordance linesN Concordance

1 now yourself I'm not going to do it at all for they're in that . So you can rename them 2 now the only thing is its pulling all you can you go . Its up there . Yeah . There you are 3 now. Yeah . There tis now . No you see I when it flashes on charge you put it like that 4 now. Yes . The guy who sings has dyed red to kind of you know you can see it there 5 Now how do you listen to those kind of song was nice . The German song was . 6 Now is that a good shot or is that not a . Now . There's the fire . There's the fire . 7 Now. There's the fire . There's the fire . Now the religious artefacts to this fella ¦ fellow . 8 Now am where is my pictures do you know? onto your system? Do shure stick them on . 9 Now do you want those things will I put them Syl Adley's place look . Syl . He has his

10 now Dermot Lynch said he'd send me all good I'm going to print that off . That's it 11 now. background talking He'll go that Derek two three laughing It's sent . Is it? It's gone 12 now in Paris and I said what's this and she and she goes I was telling you about it 13 now in+ she's off in two weeks . +she's going like yeah sure there's Ah Eva's off to Canada 14 now. Ah yeah with the exams . ah you'd get $1> How are you Gerry? Not too bad Eileen 15 now. If you'd do well Derek listen have a go I don't know about being mechanically minded 16 now is just Yeah . The other thing is on . That's her that's the mother . The other one 17 now? Which no . The bananas . Are they you want they're not holding at all Tommy 18 now and the fruit there+ Yeah . +and they go at all Terry I only bought them yesterday 19 now. you know what I mean shure give John laughing I know well that's another story 20 now. See ya take care of yourself alright . Alright bye

Temporal <$3> Ah yeah I'm not interested in the money anyway I like it where

I am you know shure I've a rich man. <$2> I know you don't need it <$E> $3 laughs <\$E> bitch I've to

think of money all the time.<$3> Yeah you know like I'll get a rise a tenner rise now in

September woo hoo+ <$2> Oh really.<$3> +but like then like I get a hundred and ninety seven now+ <$2> Ah yeah yeah yeah. <$3> +so I'm not really gonna get much more I don't think I don't

really know but if I was then I’d have to travel and then I'd be paying.

Topic-related

<$1> So we're around <$G?> it would be costs and six hundred Euros approx we'll say a thousand legal fees and five.

<$2> Yeah.<$3> Em yeah your land registry fees now about depending on if

it's a couple or a single person <$G?> <$H> supply us with the relevant information so that's <$G1> Euro <$G?>.

<$1> Yeah.

Pragmatic

<$2> You tend to just like the teabags to be waved at the cup don't ya Pa?

<$4> Ah give 'em a good squeeze there now.<$2> Will I?<$4> Yeah don't squeeze the bollocks out of it now or

anything now <$E> $2 laughs <\$E> <$G3> out like.<$2> In between a a good squeeze and a squeeze in the

balls. <$4> Yeah exactly.

Pragmatic

<$1> Has she hit the old am teenage <$O1> y= years <$O1>?<$3> <$O1> Sort of <\$O1> yeah I suppose she has now really.<$1> Doin' up the hair as George Willaby used say to me coming

down every morning with a different hairstyle <$E> laughter <\$E>.<$3> Yeah she's a bit like that all right she bought she got her dress for

the wedding. <$1> Is it?<$3> It's lovely now.

there = location

I hate going out in Limerick, total weirdos and all out there… (LCIE, 2002)

A different there…

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMbQ-aMvS44

Are you right there Father Ted?(Phone rings)

Father Ted: Father Crilly speaking.

Bishop Brennan: Crilly, it's Bishop Brennan.

Father Ted: Oh, feck! What? (French accent) Who is this? There is no Crilly 'ere. (Hangs up) God, I just said "feck" to Bishop Brennan.

Dougal: He won't like that.

Father Ted: It's ok I put on an accent so he'll think he had the wrong number.

(Phone rings again)

Bishop Brennan: Crilly.

Father Ted: Hello Bishop Brennan. I think you got the wrong number there.

Bishop Brennan: Shut up Crilly. Shut up…

there and Irish English

• Attested examples…

• Just read your e-mail there.• There’s someone looking for you there.• I was talking to Máiréad there…

Frequency data (Vaughan and Clancy, 2014)

LCIE ICE-Ireland BNC_S ANC_S0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

80007224

6487

5367

4258

Frequencies per million words

T.P. Dolan

there adv., used as a filler in HE dialogue, without necessarily indicating location. ‘Her brother-in-law came up here there last week’ (Longford)

(Dolan, 2012: 251)

There – categories in the literature Existential there There’s an awful lot of tourists. [LCIE]

Referential there Just press that button there. [LCIE]It’s really neat and she says that everybody up there wears buttons on their socks. [ANC]

Fixed phrases We had a little bit of snow here and there. [ANC]

Presentative there A: Can I have the remote control?B: There we go. [LCIE]

Conversational there Hello there and a very good afternoon to you. [LCIE]

Functions across varieties

Ex Ref There FP Pres Con Quot0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

ANCLCIEBNC

Spatial Temporal

<$3> What's up with you?<$1> What's up with you?<$3> What's up with you?<$1> I asked you first.<$E> pause <\$E><$1> Hey Lisa did you record anything there over the weekend that we can stick on?<$2> No. I should have recorded Jagged Edge last night and you could watch it.

Quotative there<$5> Oh he went mad, so we were sayin we were just laughin and out there. And I was fuckin gettin free cocktails and everything, and emm next thing Gavin came over and took it personally from some fellow, and he says “No you'll have to do the proper thing, the real proper thing now”. He got down on the one knee and he was there “Would you marry me?” I was there oh my God, he was there would you marry me, I said I'd marry you. And Gavin turned around and said one for the price of two, we have an open invitation now.<$6> Ahh.<$5> And he kept on sayin would you, would you and this really bugged me. Would you would you definitely and here's the happy couple to be.<$6> Ahh.<$2> When are yiz gettin engaged?<$5> I’m not gettin engaged.

What is intimate discourse?

• ‘Everyday life is made up of a multitude of small, if not small-minded, immediate concerns. Dinner has to be cooked, children put to bed, furniture selected and purchased. Such things have to be dealt with immediately if everything else is to proceed’ (Varenne, 1992: 13).

• ‘With those closest to us, we laugh, we chat, we fight, we gossip, we bond. [Intimate discourse] is the interaction that lies at the heart of our everyday linguistic experience’ (Clancy, fc 2016).

But…

• ‘Most dismiss these activities as irrelevant to the business of life’ (Varenne, 1992: 13).

• ‘Intimate discourse is so familiar to us all means opinions about it are readily proffered and yet rarely informed or supported with any consideration of systematic corpus evidence from the context-type itself’ (Clancy, fc 2016).

• How can corpus pragmatics help in understanding intimate discourse?

LINT (The Limerick Corpus of Intimate Talk)• Sub-corpus of LCIE• Approx. 500,000 words• Can be sub-divided again into couples, family and friends

‘Mundane’

• People talking together, ‘conversation’, is one of the most mundane of all topics (Ten Have, 2007: 3).

The mundane and the intimate

• It is not surprising then that more and more aspects of mundane socialising activities among friends and family that were once done face-to-face are now done on-line (Palencia and Lower, 2013: 617-8).

‘Banal’

• ‘Hyperbole (also referred to as exaggeration or overstatement) has been studied in rhetoric and in literary contexts, but only relatively recently in banal, everyday contexts’ (McCarthy and Carter, 2004: abstract).

‘Casual’

• ‘At other times we talk simply for the sake of talking itself. An example of this is when we get together with friends or workmates over coffee or dinner and just “have a chat”. It is to these informal interactions that the label casual conversation is usually applied’ (Eggins and Slade, 1997: 6).

‘Casual’

Pronouns

• O’Keeffe (2006: 98-99) – we, our and us ‘are central to the process of establishing and maintaining a sense of commonality and inclusion in everyday casual conversation between people who have a real common bond.’

We, our and us (normalised per million words)

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

8000

9000

4214

495 789

7245

792 636

7732

1263 1069

LINTLIBELBNC

our uswe

He and she…

I you he she0

5000

10000

15000

20000

25000

3000027511

25067

95547702

13653

26394

37761436

2399122187

56223157

LINTLIBELBNC

General extenders

Stan: Wow. I can’t believe Ms. Ellen was a criminal Iraqi fugitive.Wendy: Yeah you just never know.Stan: Well I guess I’m sorry that I was ignoring you and stuff.[Wendy smiles.]Wendy: Happy Valentine’s Day, Stan.[Wendy puckers. Stan looks a little scared, but then moves his mouth towards hers. Both kids open their mouths slightly. Stan vomits into Wendy’s open mouth.]Wendy: Ew.Stan: Sorry. (South Park, Season 1, Episode 11)

General extenders

• And stuff is a ‘powerful marker of intimacy based on shared feelings or experiences’ (Aijmer, 2013: 140).

And stuff (normalised per million words)

Series10

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

120

42

LINT

BNC

Disjunctives (normalised per million words)

or something or anything or whatever0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

688

248

160210

76 103

LINTBNC

Keywords

N Family Friends

1 he like

2 goin it’s

3 child eh

4 shure know

5 cause cos

6 tis kind

7 Nana mm

8 now em

9 Shelley just

10 Killian actually

N Family Friends

11 mmm mean

12 Lauren my

13 printer fuck

14 quare d’ya

15 somethin awh

16 yesterday shit

17 room am

18 Mammy but

19 comin fuckin

20 her really

Taboo language

• Links taboo language to group affinity – ‘the stronger the group affinity, the more swearing’ (Stenström et al., 2002: 77).

• Taboo items have a social function as ‘intimacy signals’ aimed at building up an informal, chummy atmosphere (Stenström, 1991).

Distribution of FUCK (normalised 500,000 words)

fuckin(g) fuck fucker(s) fucked fuck's0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

183

6910 5 2

574

315

30 57 38

FamilyFriends

Distribution today, tomorrow, yesterday (normalised 500,000 words)

today tomorrow yesterday0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

298

174

298

220

176

99

FamilyFriends

Distribution of pragmatic markers (normalised 500,000)

likeyou know

kind of

justactually

I meanreally

nowshure

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

8000

9000

2908

1142

274

1507

286 188645

2808

1073

7758

1693

741

2340

707 624 1069

2004

463

FamilyFriends

So…

• The blend of pragmatics and corpus linguistics (corpus pragmatics) provides us with a robust platform for the study of linguisitic variation.

• It is, however, necessary to drill down into the data in order to properly determine the characteristics of both a variety and Variety .

Shameless plug!

References

Aijmer, K., 2002. English Discourse Particles: Evidence from a Corpus. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Aijmer, K., 2013. Understanding Pragmatic Markers. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Amador-Moreno, C., 2005. An Introduction to Irish English. London: Equinox.Clancy, B., 2010. Building a corpus to represent a variety of a language. In: A. O’Keeffe and M. McCarthy (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics. London: Routledge, 80-92.Clancy, B. and E. Vaughan, 2012. It’s lunacy now: A corpus-based pragmatic analysis of the use of now in contemporary Irish English. In: B. Migge and M. Ní Chiosáin (eds.), New Perspectives on Irish English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 225-246.Culpeper, J. and M. Haugh, 2014. Pragmatics and the English Language. London: Palgrave.Defour, T., 2008. ‘The speaker’s voice: A diachronic study on the use of well and now as pragmatic markers.’ English Text Construction, 1(1), 62-82.Dolan, T.P., 2012. A Dictionary of Hiberno-English: The Irish Use of English (3rd Edition). Dublin: Gill & Macmillan. Eggins, S. and D. Slade, 1997. Analysing Casual Conversation. London: Continuum.Kallen, J., 2006. Arrah, like, you know: The dynamics of Discourse Marking in ICE-Ireland. Plenary paper presented at Sociolinguistics Symposium, July, Limerick. Available on-line: http://www.tara.tcd.ie/bitstream/handle/2262/50586/Arrah%20like%20y%27know.pdf?sequence=1 (accessed 13.08.2014).Kallen, J. and J. Kirk, 2012. SPICE-Ireland: A user’s guide. Belfast: Cló Ollscoil na Banríona.

References

McCarthy, M. and R. Carter, 2004. ‘“There’s millions of them”: Hyperbole in everyday conversation.’ Journal of Pragmatics, 36, 149-184.McNally, F., 2007. An Irishman’s Diary. The Irish Times, 23rd August, p. 17. O’Keeffe, A., 2006. Investigating Media Discourse. London: Routledge.O’Keeffe, A., 2011. ‘Teaching and Irish English.’ English Today, 27(2), 58-64.Quirk, R., 2005. Grammatical and Lexical Variance in English. London: Longman.Palencia, M.E. and A. Lower, 2013. ‘Your kids are so stinkin’ cute! :-): Complimenting behaviour on Facebook among family and friends.’ Intercultural Pragmatics, 10(4), 617-646.Stenström, A-B., 1991. Expletives in the London-Lund Corpus. In: K. Aijmer and B. Altenberg (eds.), English Corpus Linguistics: Studies in honour of Jan Svartvik. London: Longman, 239-253.Stenström, A-B., G. Andersen and I-K. Hasund, 2002. Trends in Teenage Talk: Corpus compilation, analysis and findings. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Ten Have, P., 2007. Doing Conversation Analysis: A practical guide. London: Sage.Vaughan, E. and B. Clancy, 2014. The devil is in the detail: Using corpora to investigate spoken language varieties. Paper presented at the American Association for Corpus Linguistics, Arizona, September.Wierzbicka, A., 1991. Cross-cultural Pragmatics: The Semantics of Human Interaction. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Distribution of personal pronouns (normalised 500,000 words)

I you he she we they0

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

14000

11662

10422

5146

3815

18062935

11783

10831

3528 3140

19462845

Family Friends

Using spoken corpora to investigate pragmatic variation Workshop on New Trends in Spoken Corpora...

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