A Semantic Metalanguage for a Crosscultural Comparison of

Speech Acts and Speech GenresAnna Wierzbicka

Department of Liguisitics

Australian National University

By T.J. Gillespie

Hello, I’m Anna Wierzbicka!

If you had any problems with my article, please

e-mail me at: Anna.Wierzbicka@anu.edu.au

or call me at my office:(02) 6125 3353

Anna W’s Mission:

• To understand speech acts and speech genres• To understand the importance of “folk lables”• To engage in a cross-cultural investigation of the

communicative routines of a society• To develop a meta-language that is independent of

culture (English is ethnocentric and Anna W. is proudly Polish.)

JA jestem Polskie!

Speech Acts and Speech Genres

• These are ready-made forms of speech• For the sake of argument, she combines

acts, genres, and events because they all share the same linguistic nature

• Examples: lecture, gossip, question, request, promise, warn, etc.

• You use your words to actually “do”something.

Folk Names• Anna is concerned with using linguistics to study and

compare different cultures• Look at a culture’s folk names for “ways of talking”• Anna-talk: “The lexical units which have come to

encode a culture’s view of its most relevant ‘forms of talk.’”

• Wittgenstein-talk: Language Games• TJ-talk: We have words like curse, beg, praise, etc. that

have obvious meanings complete with different rules, different outcomes, and used in different contexts.

Two Approaches to Describing Folk Labels

• From the Outside• Discuss other cultures’

labels in English terms (Eskimo questions, curses in Yakut, commands in Burundi

• Biased and Ethnocentric

• Follows English’s norms and makes English the standard

• From the Inside

• Discusses speech genres in the native language

• Free of bias

• The ‘culture specific essence is retained’

• Anybody speak Burundi?

• Know any good curses in Yakut?* (besides Кылаабынай редактор!)

• This method is hard for outsiders

Whoa, Whoa, What’s the Problem?

• So what if we use English? All cultures request, apologize, promise, bet, order, warn and all those other things right?

• Maybe*. But try to explain “exorcism” to a Chinese Buddhist or “baptism” to an Australian Aborigine. Or maybe “doubling at Bridge” or “bluffing your poker hand.”*Anna W. may still dispute this assumption. What and see! You’re still Ethnocentric!

Example: English Vs. Japan

We have the word warning! They have the word satosu!

But they are NOT the SAME!

Satosu implies that the speaker has authority over the addressee and that the speaker has the intention of protecting the addressee because they have good feelings for him.

We do not have a word that combines authority, responsibility, and concern.

The answer?A Proposed Semantic Metalanguage

• A way to talk about language that is language-independent (free of bias, free of ethnocentrism)

• Method: paraphrase the word, expression, or construction in simple terms that allow for a precise comparison of both the similarities and differences between concepts.

• These simple terms are called semantic primes which are atomic, primitive meanings present in all human languages.

What?

Metalanguage?Primatives?Huh?

Maybe we need some examples, Anna!

Let’s use Anna’s Metalanguage to Analyze “Warning” and “Satosu”

• Warning• I say: If you do X

something bad (Y) will happen to you

• I say this because I want to know it and to be able to cause that bad thing (Y) not to happen to you

• Satosu• I say: if you do X it will be a

bad thing.

• I say it because I want to cause you to know it and not to do it.

• I don’t want you to do bad things.

• I assume that you have to do what I say I want you to do.

• I assume that you understand that I have good feelings towards you.

Semantic Primes/Primatives

• While “warn” and “satosu” are culturally different words, and they do not have equivalents, we can describe them with semantically simpler words that have equivalents in (most) other languages of the world.

• Here is a quick list of these universal primatives: ABOVE, AFTER, ALL, BAD, BECAUSE, BEFORE, BELOW, BIG, BODY, CAN, DIE, DO, FAR, FEEL, FOR SOME TIME, GOOD, HAPPEN, HAVE, HEAR, HERE, I, IF, INSIDE, KIND OF, KNOW, LIKE, LIVE, A LONG TIME, MANY/MUCH, MAYBE, MOMENT, MORE, MOVE, (LONG), NEAR, NOT, NOW, ONE, OTHER, PART OF, PEOPLE/PERSON, THE SAME, SAY, SEE, A SHORT TIME, SIDE, SMALL, SOME, SOMEONE, SOMETHING/THING, THERE IS, THINK, THIS, TOUCH, TRUE, TWO, VERY, WANT, WHEN/TIME, WHERE/PLACE, WORD, YOU

Another Example: English vs. Walmatjarri*

Walmajarri people in the remote Great Sandy Desert in the Kimberley region of Western Australia

Every speech act constitutes a bundle of illocutionary components: intentions, assumptions, thoughts, feelings, etc.

The word “ORDER”I say: I want you to do somethingI say it because I can cause you to do itI assume that you will do it.I assume that you have to do things I say I want you to do

The word “ASK”I say: I want you to do something that will be good for me.I say it because I want to cause you to do itI don’t know that you will do it.I assume that you do not have to do things I say I want you to do

The word “japirlyung”In the old way, we might say that this word is a kinship-based request. But the use of the English speech act word “Request” is misleading and ethnocentric. Request implies that the listener can refuse. He can’t.

I say: I want you to do something that will be good for me.I say it because I want to cause you to do it I assume that you will do it.I assume that you have to do things I say I want you to do because of the way we are related.

Other Aspects of the Metalanguage

• Elimination of the “Vicious Circle”– Avoids defining words with synonyms– No speech act can be defined by any other speech act. (ie. request=to ask for

something politely)

• Can be used to explain differences in syntactic patterning

– We can tell someone a joke– But we can’t confess someone our sins or reveal someone a secret.– Confess and reveal differ in their implications with the message (ie. one message is

guilty; the other is secret)– Tell may affect the listener but not the message itself. If I tell a joke to John, he may

laugh but the joke is not affected. If I tell him the truth, the message will not be affected.

First Person Format

• Anna uses the first person, singular, present tense in her explications. (“I warn,” “I request”)

• It is semantically simpler than other forms• All other forms are derived from it• There is a subjective attitude that is best expressed by

the first person• Subjective attitudes are often expressed in intonation• Real speech act verbs (complain, boast, warn, order,

promise, etc) must be compatible with the speaker’s attitude. This can only be expressed in the first person.

The Chomsky Problem

• Chomskyean linguists argue that semantic analysis is futile

• Other people’s assumptions and intentions cannot be observed and therefore can never be known

• How can be develop a semantic analysis based on the unknown?We can’t! Anna, this is foolish! Stop right now. You are wasting everyone’s time! I am a Philosopher All-Star. Bow to me!

Anna’s Response

• We are simply modelling the attitudes conveyed in the first-person expressions.

• Whether the assumptions and intentions are sincerely held by the speaker is irrelevant.

• People’s real intentions are not related to the semantic intention conveyed by conventional linguistic means

• This is explicit and verifiable, so eat it Chomsky!

Do you need an example? • “She ordered him to go, but she really didn’t

want to be obeyed.”

What are you, a psychologist? A magician? You can read people’s minds and tell us how they feel?

In terms of semantics, all we need to do is describe the action of X’s saying. X says: I want you to do Z. Whether she means it or not doesn’t matter. We only care about the meanings conveyed in speech.

The rest doesn’t matter to us.

Almost Done.

• She wants to put this metalanguage into practice by examining Speech Genres:

• Insults• Applications• Public discourse• Jokes

• Each embodies a mode of social interaction characteristic of a particular culture. She is going to write about English and Polish.

Ritual Insults: An Academic Investigation of the Momma Joke

• Yo mama's so clumsy she got tangled up in a cordless phone! Yo mama's arms are so short, she has to tilt her head to scratch her ear!Yo mama's mouth so big, she speaks in surround sound! Yo mama's teeth are so yellow she spits butter! Yo mama's so skinny she turned sideways and disappeared! Yo mama's so short you can see her feet on her drivers licence! Yo mama's so poor she can't afford to pay attention! Yo mama's so poor she goes to Kentucky Fried Chicken to lick other people's fingers! Yo mama's so poor she waves around a popsicle stick and calls it air conditioning! Yo mama's so fat she got to iron her pants on the driveway! Yo mama's so fat when her beeper goes off, people think she is backing up! Yo mama's so fat people jog around her for exercise! Yo mama's so fat she went to the movies and sat next to everyone! Yo mama's so fat she has been declared a natural habitat for Condors! Yo mama's so fat she lays on the beach and people run around yelling Free Willy! Yo mama's so fat she goes to a restaurant, looks at the menu and says "okay!"

Here’s How Anna Sees Momma Jokes:

• I say something bad about your mother• I assume that everyone will understand that it can’t be true• I know that people would say that it is a bad thing to say such things.• I say this because I want to show that I can think of things to say that other

people can’t and that I am not afraid to say things that people think are bad to say.

• I think that the others who will hear this will feel amused and will feel admiration for me.

• I think you will want to say something worse about my mother so that the people who hear it will admire you.

• I want you to say it if you can• I think you can’t• I say all this because I want to cause myself and the others to feel amused• I assume we say these things because we are becoming men.

Applications and Lettters(in Poland)

Many Polish Written Speech Genres reflect the bureaucratization of life and the power of institutions over individuals

The power is often arbitrary

This cultural understanding is communicated in its speech in a way that obviously doesn’t exist in English

Polish Letters:The Podanie vs. the List

• Podanie• A humble

letter/supplication/aplication

• Individual requests something from an institution

• Official and formal• Employee requesting

leave, a student writing to a dean

• List• Personal letter• Informal

Cultural Differences Between the English “Application” and the Polish “Podanie”

• Application• I think of you as of someone who

represents institution Y• I say: I would want you to cause X

for me.• I think that it would be good if you

caused it for me because of the things that can be said about me.

• I say this, in writing, because I want you to consider whether you think it would be good if you caused it for me.

• I assume you will let me know whether you will do it.

• Podanie• I think of you as of someone who

represents institution Y• I say: I would want you to do

something that would be good for me• I say this, in writing, because I would

want to consider whether you would want to do this or not

• I don’t know whether you will do it.• I understand that you do not have to

do it.• I understand that institutions do not

have to do what people would want them to do.

Speech Genre 3: Public Speech

• In English, we have many labels for public discourse, each of them with a different meaning:

• a talk * a lecture

• a speech *a paper

• A report *an address

• In Polish, they lack some of ours and have some that we don’t have:

• Pogadanka—an informal, unsytematic genre given by one whose knowledge is superior to his listeners’.

• Referat—stresses empirical, fact based text presented ahead of time

• Przemowienie—orally delivered message (akin to speech)

I think you’re getting the idea, but here are Anna’s Analysis in Metalanguage…• Lecture

• I want to say to you all many things about X• I assume you know that I am one of the people who know a

lot about things of this kind and who read and write about them

• I think you should know some things about X.• I want to say these things because I think you should know

them• I assume you understand that I will say these things in a

certain order so you can think of them as different parts of one thing.

• Speech• I want to say something now about X• I say it because I want to say what I think• I think it is important that we should all think about it• I assume that people here would want to know what I

would say about X• I assume we all feel the same about things of this kind• Referat• I assume that everyone here understands that I know some

things about X which they don’t know because I have worked thinking about it

• I assume that I should read now what I have written thinking about X

• Talk• I want to say various things about X• I assume you know that I can say various things about

X• I assume you would want me to say some of these

things to you.• I assume you would want us to say things to each other

about these things.• Paper• I assume people reading/hearing this will understand

that I have worked thinking about X• I assume that they will understand that I have some

thoughts about X because of that• I would want to say to other people who have thought

about these things what my thoughts are• Address• I want to say something now to all of you• I say it because I want everyone among you to know

what I have to say• I think it is important• I assume that, because of my position among you, you

would all want to know what I want to say to you.

Heard any good Polish jokes lately?

• Jokes are another speech genre that are culture-specific

• Poland has different kinds– Zart—not necessarily verbal; akin to practical

jokes– Dowcip—verbally creative, wit– Kawal— “an anonymous creation of oral

culture, a cultural coin meant for general circulation.” I’ll explain.

Funny in any language!

Kawal(y)*

• Promulgates ingroupness, solidarity, social integration– Some are dirty, which creates a male solidarity and

male ingroupness.

• Prototypically political• Creates a feeling of belonging• Defiance of the official culture• Narrative genre—there is a story, even if it is breif

The “y” makes a noun plural in Polish

Still Awake?Let’s wrap it up!

• Language specific terms for speech acts (bet, promise, curse) and speech genres (jokes, lectures, insults) present codified modes of social interaction.

• Precise analysis of such terms can provide insight into cross-cultural studies.

• It is necessary to use an independent metalanguage to conduct semantic analysis

• This metalanguage is based on reductive paraphrase (that is, breaking concepts/words down into combinations of simpler concepts/words called

linguistic primes)

Semantic Formulae for Joke vs. Kawal

• Kawal• I want to say to you something of the

kind that many people say to each other to make them laugh and feel good together

• I say: I want you to imagine that what I’m going to say that happened is true

• I assume that understand that it isn’t true

• I say it because I want to cause you to laugh and cause us to feel good together

• I assume I can tell you this because I assume that we feel the same about things of this kind

• I assume you can understand what people want one another to think when the say this to one another

• Joke• I say: I want you to

imagine that I want you to believe what I am saying

• I assume you understand that I don’t want you to believe it.

• I say it because I want to cause you to want to laugh and to cause us to feel good together.

Thank you and good night!