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Developing pragmatic competence in English as a lingua franca: Using discourse markers to express (inter)subjectivity and connectivity
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Developing pragmatic competence in English as a lingua franca: Using discourse markers to express (inter)subjectivity and connectivity Juliane House * Hamburg University, Lagerlöfstr. 25, 22391 Hamburg, Germany Received 5 June 2012; received in revised form 13 January 2013; accepted 4 March 2013
Abstract The paper investigates how ELF speakers improve their pragmatic competence by using the discourse markers yes/yeah, so and okay as expressions of (inter)subjectivity and connectivity. The data discussed in this paper stems from university consultation hours, and it is part of a larger project conducted at the University of Hamburg on multilingualism and multiculturalism in the international university. Findings of the case studies described in this paper suggest that speakers of English as a lingua franca in academic consultation hours tend to strategically re-interpret certain discourse markers in order to help themselves improve their pragmatic competence and thus function smoothly in the flow of talk. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Discourse markers; English as a lingua franca; (Inter)subjectivity; Connectivity; Pragmatic competence
1. Introduction In this paper I want to demonstrate how speakers of English as a lingua franca (ELF) learn how to function smoothly in a type of interaction in which none of the participants are native speakers of the language used. The data reported on in this paper is part of a larger project on multilingualism and multiculturalism in the international university. I will here look at how international students and academic staff participating in academic consultation hours conducted in ELF manage to develop pragmatic competence via the use of certain high-frequency discourse markers as indicators of (inter) subjectivity and connectivity. The findings of the analyses of this data reveal how ELF users come to effectively vary native English use of these markers for their own benefit by strategically re-interpreting them both for their own and their interactants’ purposes in discourse. Before tackling the data, I will first briefly deal with the phenomena relevant to this paper: (inter)subjectivity, connectivity, ELF and the larger project context from which the present data is taken. 2. (Inter)subjectivity and connectivity Subjectivity was defined by Benveniste (1966) as the ability of a speaker to present himself or herself in and through language as a ‘subject’, and to indicate his or her attitude towards, and assessment of the proposition in an utterance. Benveniste set up an apparatus of ‘enunciation’ consisting of deictic elements that point to things that are physically
* Tel.: +49 40 5360627. E-mail address: [email protected]. 0378-2166/$ -- see front matter © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2013.03.001
Please cite this article in press as: House, J., Developing pragmatic competence in English as a lingua franca: Using discourse markers to express (inter)subjectivity and connectivity, Journal of Pragmatics (2013), http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.pragma.2013.03.001
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present in a face-to-face situation, the deictic pronoun first person singular, the local and temporal adverbs referring to the here and now, as well as items such as (in their English equivalents) you, over there, immediately or certain adverbial expressions of opinion such as for instance, in my opinion, honestly etc. Smith (2002) has examined subjectivity firstly in terms of ‘point of view’ in which a certain way of looking at what is expressed in a text or discourse is revealed either directly in acts of communication or indirectly as contents of mind and evaluation, and secondly as ‘perspective’ which refers for instance to reports of personal experience that may be direct, indirect or inferred. According to Smith, every linguistic element can be used to express point of view or perspective as long as processes of thinking are always involved. In systemic-functional linguistics, subjectivity relates to the interpersonal metafunction, and to the dimension of Tenor, specifically to Stance, i.e. the cognitive and affective attitude of a speaker towards the events and states of affairs s/he is describing when producing or receiving an utterance (Halliday, 1994). Subjectivity in this understanding also relates to the function certain linguistic elements have in influencing the hearer or addressee in interaction such that there exists a close relationship between subjectivity and addressee orientation, and thus to what one may call ‘intersubjectivity’. In any interaction, speakers use many linguistic means to express this intersubjectivity: personal pronouns, temporal and local adverbials in order to guide their interactants’ interpretation of events and states of affairs expressed in the discourse. On many different linguistic levels, the expression of (inter)subjectivity is part of speakers’ concern with positioning themselves in the discourse, and via this positioning guiding and influencing interactants’ inferencing processes. Another means of expressing intersubjectivity in the sense of guiding addressee through the discourse has been referred to as ‘connectivity’. I define ‘connectivity’ as a linguistic phenomenon subsuming linguistic devices that interconnect units of text and discourse and create relations between these units. The concept of connectivity has recently been described with particular reference to its role in multlingual communication by House and Rehbein (2004) and Rehbein et al. (2007). In its broad sense, connectivity is concerned with phenomena of linguistic interaction in different aspects of grammar, prosody, text and discourse. Important is here the role played by various linguistic elements used for interconnecting units of text and discourse as well as the linguistic forms employed and their functions. An example would be the use of the discourse marker so to create connections between stretches of discourse -- which will be discussed in detail below. Connectivity has recently received increasing attention by researchers who focused on typological and contrastive phenomena (cf. e.g. Berman, 1998; Behrens and Fabricius-Hansen, 2002) and on aspects of the meaning and function of discourse or pragmatic markers (cf. e.g. Fischer, 2006; Aijmer and Simon-Vandenbergen, 2006). As House (2006) and Rehbein et al. (2007) point out, connectivity is by no means identical with ‘context’-- the latter being a much broader and more elusive concept which goes beyond the linguistic phenomena we are trying to capture here with the concept of connectivity. In a sense, we can say, with Rehbein et al. (2007: 3), that the linguistic means of connectivity make a text or discourse at least partially independent of context. Having briefly described what I mean by (inter)subjectivity and connectivity as the phenomena for which the acquisition and use of the discourse makers to be investigated will be important, I will now take a closer look at the genre in which these markers have come to be used. 3. Academic consultation hours as an instance of institutional discourse Early research into academic consultation hours focused on the advisors’ positions of authority in the institution for which they act as ‘gate-keepers’ (Erickson and Shultz, 1982; Kerekes, 2003). One of the major objectives of these studies, most of which originated in the United States, was students’ competence in English and the native-versus-non-native issue. Thus, for instance Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford (2005) discuss interlanguage pragmatics phenomena in academic discourse between native and non-native English interactants. In the context of academic advising sessions in the MUMIS project, which I will describe below, we are dealing with ELF interactants none of whom has English as their native language. In a European context, research into academic institutional discourse in the international university has shifted away from the native-non-native paradigm. An example of this new research interest in academic institutional discourse is the work done inside the CALPIU -- Cultural and Linguistic Practices in the International University -- Research Center at Roskilde University (see e.g. Mortensen, 2010; Preisler et al., 2011). Other important work in this area has been done by Mauranen and her team with the ELFA and SELF projects (cf. e.g. Mauranen, 2012). What happens in academic consultation hours? Typically, such interactions are concerned with students’ current states of affairs, their study situation, qualification and certification issues, students’ future activities, as well as learning problems, their causes or potential solutions. The interactional role of counseling in academic consultation hours typically offered by university professors includes displaying expertise and ‘‘emphasizing their engagement with the addressee’’ (Bolden, 2006). Turn-taking, topic introductions, pauses, overlap, interruptions and various linguistic expressions used to indicate interactants’ positioning in the discourse are some of the indicators for the progression of the covert or overt interactional agenda of academic advisors and advisees. Please cite this article in press as: House, J., Developing pragmatic competence in English as a lingua franca: Using discourse markers to express (inter)subjectivity and connectivity, Journal of Pragmatics (2013), http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.pragma.2013.03.001
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4. The use of ELF in academic consultation hours in the international university A particular case of academic consultation hours is the one conducted in a language which is not the native tongue of any of the participants. This happens when the English language is used in its function as a lingua franca. ELF can be described as English used in a specific context characterized by an enormous functional and formal variability and a multiplicity of voices. It is used as a means of communication, a medium that can be given substance with different national, regional, local, and individual cultural identities. Nevertheless, ELF users’ native pragmatic norms are more often than not maintained. When English is used in interactions between, say, German, Spanish and French speakers, differences in interactional norms, standards of politeness, directness, values, feelings of cultural and historical tradition tend to remain intact. These norms are not shared, nor need they be. Localized, regionalized or otherwise appropriated varieties - whose linguistic surface is English, but whose speakers creatively conduct pragmatic shifts in their use of this auxiliary language - are taking over the linguistic landscape. ELF speakers are developing their own discourse strategies, speech act modifications, genres and communicative styles, reinterpreting linguistic expressions for their own benefit, as we shall see below. As long as a threshold of understanding is achieved, ELF participants appear to adopt a ‘‘let-it-pass’’ principle, an interpretive procedure which makes the interactional style ‘‘robust’’, ‘‘normal’’ and ordinary (Firth, 1996). This ordinariness is a joint achievement of interactants, who successfully engage in their interactional and interpretive work in order to sustain the appearance of normality despite being exposed to each other’s highly variable linguistic behavior. An important general characteristic of ELF interactions is their inherent variability (Dewey, 2009; Firth, 2009). This variability lies at the core of ELF discourse, where speakers creatively and strategically exploit, intentionally appropriate, locally adapt and communicatively align the potential inherent in the forms and functions, items and collocations of ‘‘the virtual English language’’ (cf. Widdowson, 2003: 50, Seidlhofer, 2011, chapter 5), to which they take recourse in their performance as the need arises (cf. Cogo and Dewey, 2006; Seidlhofer and Widdowson, 2007). ELF interactants regard themselves as united in different ‘‘communities of practice’’ (House, 2003). The notion ‘‘community of practice’’ (Wenger, 1989) is most appropriate for ELF in that the constitution of a community of practice is governed by a joint purpose. In the case of the academic consultation hours examined below, the overriding purpose of this community of practice seems to be that of sorting out academic issues related to a particular course of studies. This purpose is best achieved through effective communication via ELF as a convenient tool. Two other important aspects of a community of practice are members’ mutual engagement in regular interaction and a shared repertoire of various kinds of resources (buildings, access to equipment, syllabi, specific terminology used in the course of study, conventions of address etc.). Both these conditions certainly apply to the ELF academic consultation talk to be examined below, so we may be justified in referring to them as a particular community of practice. Inside ELF academic consultation interactions as a community of practice to be examined below, expressions of (inter) subjectivity and connectivity can be considered to further increase a sense of sharedness and community. Having clarified the most important concepts underlying the empirical work to be presented below, I will now briefly review previous relevant work done in the context of the larger project of which the current study is a part. A project specifically concerned with ELF talk in academic consultation hours is the Hamburg ELF project funded since 2008 by the Volkswagen Stiftung (House, 2008, 2009; Baumgarten and House, 2007, House and Lévy-Tödter, 2009, 2010). In this project we examine ELF academic consultation talk between international students and their academic advisors, professors and assistants as well as post hoc interviews for collaborative interpretation. Previous analyses of ELF academic consultation hours (e.g. Baumgarten and House, 2007, 2010; House, 2009) point to participants’ strategic employment of expressions of (inter) subjectivity and connectivity through re-interpreting the discourse markers you know, I mean, I think, I don’t know. You know has generally been described in the literature as an interpersonal, other-oriented marker used as a hedge and a marker of politeness. House (2009) put forward the hypothesis that you know tends to be re-interpreted by ELF interactants in such a way that it becomes a more self-referenced way of highlighting both formulation difficulties and coherence relations in speakers’ own turns. The results of House’s analysis show a surprisingly frequent co-occurrence of you know and the conjunctions but, and, because. When you know co-occurs with these conjunctions, it acts as a focusing strategy, making the adversative, additive or causal relation expressed by these conjunctions more salient. You know also functions as a coherence marker in a different sense: it tends to be employed whenever the speaker is momentarily ‘‘incoherent’’, cannot find the right words, fumbles for an appropriate formulation, and tries to repair a misstep using you know to reveal planning difficulties. The original meaning of you know is clearly no longer predominant in ELF talk, i.e. you know is primarily used to help ELF speakers own thinking and verbalization processes and their processes of planning their own output, and linking spans of the discourse they enact -- clearly expressions of subjectivity and connectivity. The discourse markers I think, I don’t know and I mean are also re-interpreted in ELF talk (Baumgarten and House, 2007, 2010). As compared to native speakers of English, ELF speakers make frequent use of the constructions I think and I don’t know in their prototypical meanings. They prefer to use these constructions as main clause complement structures Please cite this article in press as: House, J., Developing pragmatic competence in English as a lingua franca: Using discourse markers to express (inter)subjectivity and connectivity, Journal of Pragmatics (2013), http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.pragma.2013.03.001
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over the more grammaticalized structures and pragmaticalized meanings as these are expressed in the verbal routine forms preferred by native speakers of English. For instance, I think in ELF talk is used to express the speaker’s subjective opinion, and I don’t know is used as a marker of the speaker’s insufficient knowledge about the topic of the discourse. These uses clearly indicate that ELF speakers have re-interpreted the native speaker usage of these discourse markers. The expression I mean tends to be used with a strong evaluative element in ELF talk over and above the marker’s main function of reformulation/clarification (Baumgarten and House, 2007), i.e., I mean acts as a focalizing device in a speaker’s contributions to the discourse. It is a point of departure for the speaker’s explicit expression of his/her subjective evaluation, signaling emotional involvement in the topic at hand. Given these results, the current study examines whether a similar tendency to express (inter)subjectivity and/or connectivity can be detected in ELF speaker’s acquisition and use of the discourse markers yes/yeah, so and okay. 5. The current study: developing pragmatic competence with regard to the strategic employment of discourse markers: Yes/Yeah, So and Okay The data basis of the current study consists of 42 audio-recorded and transcribed 10--30 min ELF academic consultation hours talk between German university professors (P), their assistants (A) and international graduate (post MA) ERASMUS students from Spain (S). The purpose of the current study is to examine how these subjects managed to increase their pragmatic competence using the discourse makers yes/yeah, so and okay. These three markers were found to be not only used highly frequently by all the participants in the study, but also with many different functions, such as uptaking, discourse structuring, back-channeling, agreeing, expressing consensus, as we will see below. 5.1. The discourse marker yes/yeah The marker yeah/yes is employed by ELF speakers with several different functions (Spielmann, 2007) such as uptaking (alter’s message), back-channeling (both supporting alter’s message and signaling that no claim for turn takeover is being made), agreeing with alter’s moves and structuring discourse. Face-saving features which accompany the overall inoffensive undertone of yes/yeah make this marker particularly suitable for ELF talk, where interactants tend to be aware of the precarious nature of their intercultural interaction. ELF speakers thus often exploit the positive impact of yeah/ yes to downtone face-threatening acts. In line with Wong’s (2000:6) findings of the use of yeah in non-native English talk, yeah used in ELF talk may serve as a sign of ‘‘self-presentational display’’ suggesting that non-native speakers are generally more attentive of what they say. Like you know, yeah can also be used as a self-supporting strategy. Most instances of yeah found in Spielmann’s data match the three major categories: backchannel signals, agreement markers and discourse structurers. The frequent use of yeah/yes in ELF discourse can best be explained with its polyfunctionality a characteristic that makes its use ‘‘communicatively effective’’ because a lot of pragmatic content of back-chaneling, agreeing and discourse structuring is here packed into minimal verbal form. In the present study, the use of yeah/yes supports the results obtained by Liao (2009), who pointed out that yeah/yes tends to occur with great frequency in interview type talk because this type of talk generally involves more turn-taking than other types of talks such as small talk or discussions, with the marker yes/yeah occurring typically around turn taking. The first interesting finding with regard to the use of yes/yeah is that the token yes seems to be preferred by ELF speakers whenever they genuinely agree to questions or statements produced by their interlocutors. Consider excerpts 1 and 2: Excerpt 1 P: okay next thing you know on the fourteenth of Ju June there is a German AUTag just for your [information] S: [AUTag nee] P: it’s where you are coming here S: it’s here at the TU? P: yes yes yes once a year there is a so-called AUTag. . . Excerpt 2 P: then you should also state this erm within your CV S: but it’s it’s also in my CV I mean (0.5) I don’t have any other erm records and erm what about for example do I need reference letters? P: yes if you ha:ve of course The token yeah is used in this data more regularly and in many more varied positions than the token yes. Of the three major functions of yeah in ELF talk suggested by Spielmann (2007) - agreeing, discourse structuring, backchanneling, it is Please cite this article in press as: House, J., Developing pragmatic competence in English as a lingua franca: Using discourse markers to express (inter)subjectivity and connectivity, Journal of Pragmatics (2013), http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.pragma.2013.03.001
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the discourse structuring function via the use of yeah which predominates in the office hours data examined in this study. Yeah tends to be used in order to monitor and organize speakers’ own contributions to the talk, simultaneously taking up and taking in what their interlocutors have said, rather than to agree with alter’s move. When using yeah, ELF speakers seem to be more self-oriented, i.e., they try to gain time both for coming to terms with their interlocutors’ utterance and for getting on with their own discourse planning and production. In excerpt 3, yes is used to signal agreement and yeah to structure the discourse turn-initially. Excerpt 3 P: and we will send it er to the man who is er supporting (soft) this (soft) S: under your name? P: yes S: so that will be be (0.5) your okay endorsement P: yes this is my my my support yeah my recommendation S: allright that’s @@ that’s better P: @@ S: yeah then erm well I just was talking to erm And in Excerpts 4 and 5 yeah is also used to fill perceived gaps and structure the discourse, also turn-internally and turn-finally. Excerpt 4 P: there there is uh one week where the building companies come to to to the university and they make some presentation and = S: = ahh this week yeah P: this one week erm yeah but I cannot do it I have to go(0.5) here this week S: yeah the week of civil engineering yeah Excerpt 5 S: because then it will be a very heavy heavy weight producter P: @@ erm yeah but erm you mentioned before a four level bridge no S: that wasn’t me P: yeah no what what you mentioned erm what subject in the past you have erm had in mind. . . In excerpt 5, the immediate juxtaposition of yeah and no shows that yeah is here not used to indicate simple agreement. Rather it acts as an uptaking and discourse structuring device. Interactants in this office hours data were also found to fall back onto the use of the German native language ja as a backchannel signal, or a so-called Go-on (Edmondson, 1981), i.e. a marker with which the speaker tells his/her interlocutor that s/he can ‘go on talking’ because there will be no claim on her/his turn. Consider excerpt 6: Excerpt 6: P: you send the pdf file I think S: erm in pdf I read erm okay in computer but I don’t print P: the printing is is wrong only the printing or? S: I think only the printing [because] P: [jajaja] S: in my file is okay P: strange S: in in your file is okay in computer? In excerpt 7, the German L1 marker ja is again used as a Go-on, with the marker yes indexing agreement: Excerpt 7: S: erm I have currently I have prepared them (0.5) in English = P: =ja S: and I also want send them too in German which I’ve not yet sent anywhere cause I’ve just prepared them with help of some [friends] Please cite this article in press as: House, J., Developing pragmatic competence in English as a lingua franca: Using discourse markers to express (inter)subjectivity and connectivity, Journal of Pragmatics (2013), http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.pragma.2013.03.001
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P: S: P: S: P:
[ ja] and colleagues ja I should give a copy of that copy too? yes
Taken together, ELF speakers in this office hours talk seem to have acquired a clear functional variation in the use of the tokens yes, yeah and code-switched German L1 ja. They use yes with maximal attention and awareness when they want to signal agreement, often in question-answer sequences. They use yeah with less awareness. Yeah can be said to indicate a speaker’s more automatic focus on the discourse progression monitoring a speaker’s own utterance and signalling uptake. And a speaker’s relapse into his or her L1 in producing ja seems to be an indication of a heightened degree of automaticity, i.e. a state of ‘non-thinking’. All three variants are not only signs of ELF speakers’ acquisition of modes of expressions of (inter)subjectivity, they are also acquired and used to index connectivity: they structure the discourse and provide linkage across and inside turns. While yes as a signal of agreement is clearly mainly alter-oriented marking intersubjectivity, yeah and ja also express subjectivity and intersubjectivity: yeah as a self-prompt and uptaker, ja as a signal of L1 identity and an expression of solidarity with one’s interactants. Clearly, interactants in this academic consultation hours talk have developed an important ‘slice’ of strategic competence in ELF talk. These findings are also supported in other ELF work (cf. House, 2010, 2011). 5.2. The discourse marker so The analysis of the interactional behavior of the marker so in this ELF data shows that so is here acquired and used mainly as a useful speaker-supportive element. So functions primarily as a deictic element that speakers use to support them in the planning of upcoming moves and as a means of ‘‘looking backwards’’ summing up previous discourse stretches. So in native German discourse has been characterized as a complex double-bind element, acting as a sort of (mental) hinge between what has come before and what will occur next in the discourse (cf. e.g. Ehlich, 2007; Barske and Golato, 2010). As concerns native English discourse, the marker so has often been described as signaling causal and inferential connections between clauses, and introducing a new topic. Blakemore (1988) has argued that so marks inferences, and Raymond (2004) claims that so, if standing alone, is used to prompt the listener to produce a follow-up move. In a different vein, Johnson (2002) has argued that so can also be used to preface questions acting as a topic developer. In more recent work on the pragmatic functions of English so, Bolden (2006, 2009) describes it as launching sequences of new actions. She argues that so used sequence-initially has been on the speaker’s ‘agenda’ for some time, being relevantly pending, and she refers to so as a marker of ‘‘emergence from incipiency’’ (2006: 663), claiming that its use conveys to the addressee that the upcoming course of action is ‘emerging from incipiency’ and has already been on the interactional agenda for some time. According to Bolden, so is often used when a speaker has to deal with an interactional problem typically arising whenever the current utterance occurs not as a sequence to the immediately preceding talk and helps answer the question ‘‘why that now’’, telling the listener to interpret the following move as one belonging to a pending one (Bolden, 2009: 996). Bolden suggests that so more often than not precedes sequences that accomplish other-attentive courses of action. It is clearly alter-oriented, ‘‘doing other attentiveness’’ in social interaction (2006: 664) and acting as a resource for accomplishing alter’s understanding. As opposed to these findings with native English talk, ELF speakers were found to have acquired and used so in functions that are very different: so in this ELF talk does not index other-attentiveness. Rather, it is realized in connection with selfattentive matters. So is therefore not used with a strong interpersonal function, but rather acquires a predominantly text structuring and self-supporting function, also acting as a stop-gap ‘‘fumble’’ (Edmondson, 1981) helping the speaker bridge formulation problems. ELF speakers in the data on hand seem to have acquired so when they need a self-monitoring filler to prevent conversational breakdown. So thus follows hesitation markers ‘‘erm’’, ‘‘hmm’’, or pauses of varying lengths. And so also often collocates with the connector and. These co-occurrences can be taken as evidence for the use of so as a selfprompting strategy to monitor a speaker’s output, marking his/her resumption of speech after hesitations and pauses both turn-initially and in mid-turn. This use of so confirms Redeker’s (2006: 342) description of so as primarily a marker of discourse segment transitions, so being placed at the end of a segment, before the next segment and initiating a return to a previous segment. Our data shows all of these positions. Consider excerpts 8 and 9: Excerpt 8 S: I actually better take some notes P: mhm (1) so: there is ONE one man er he is working for erm for [company 1] S: [mhm] P: [and] erm so he is er in the erm working in (.) with the er design and calculation of [company 1] Please cite this article in press as: House, J., Developing pragmatic competence in English as a lingua franca: Using discourse markers to express (inter)subjectivity and connectivity, Journal of Pragmatics (2013), http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.pragma.2013.03.001
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P’s use of so in both his turns in excerpt 8 is clearly not back-referenced to S’s announcement that he will take notes during their talk. Rather, following the hesitation signal mhm and the pause, the connector and and the hesitation marker erm, P seems to use so to ‘‘get himself going again’’ and resume the train of thought expressed in his previous move: Excerpt 9 S: and ja I also have a question about that I mean I think erm (1.5) the erm procedures are a little different in Germany how do you generally apply to er firms like this for [Diplomarbeit] P: [mhm mhm mhm] S: or master thesis P: okay S: is it just erm= P: =it should be at first a letter erm where you erm you are stating er WHO who you are and what you are doing so you are studying at this university and in this in this program and erm so within this program you have a a module in composites and so you are interesting in the subject and you are asking erm erm for a a a a a subject a a a master thesis subject in this= S: =in this field yeah In his first use of so in excerpt 9, P uses so in mid-turn, initiating an elaboration of the previous phrase ‘‘what you are doing’’, i.e. using so to egg himself on with his explanation. In its second occurrence, so follows a hesitation marker, and in the third occurrence it follows the connector and -- in both these cases so introduces further elaborations and explanations. Excerpt 10 is another example of the strategic use of so for preventing a potential breakdown of the talk. One may hypothesize that P is not capable of continuing the if-sentence he started formulating. He therefore inserted the marker so, and after its production he continues to formulate the utterance with a presumably more manageable declarative main clause. Excerpt 10 S: hm hm P: and twelve of the other part S: okay P: [yeah] P: [it’s] depending on you what you need and if you erm so so I give you this plan and on the courses attend the courses. . . Taken together, ELF speakers in the above data seem to have acquired the use of the marker so as a predominantly speaker-supportive strategy in co-occurrence with hesitations, pauses and breaks in the discourse thus indexing a speaker’s focus on his/her own talk, signalling resumption of the talk and helping him/her gain time while acting strategically as a self-prompt. One may hypothesize that the use of so in this ELF data interestingly differs both from the use of English native so and also the German homograph/so/as it is used in native German talk, but this hypothesis needs to be further investigated with different data and in-depth analyses, which goes beyond the remit of this paper. In a sense, so can also be said to display the speaker’s mental processes (Fischer, 2006: 445), anchoring the discourse in a particular co-text and context, and contextualizing the speaker and her processes of perception, planning, understanding, and affective stance. In being enabled to use so in this manner, ELF speakers can effectively express (inter)subjectivity and connectivity and thus advance their pragmatic competence. 5.3. The discourse marker okay The discourse marker okay is one of the most versatile, most broadly applicable and most frequently used discourse markers. In being able to use the multifunctional discourse marker okay, ELF speakers can achieve a maximum of interactional functions with a minimum of linguistic and cognitive effort in a variety of different interactional positions. Okay seems to be particularly widespread in academic discourse in the natural sciences as Schleef (2005, 2008) has documented. Okay has also been shown to be common in classroom talk (Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975; Edmondson and House, 1981), in meetings or phone-calls (Beach, 1993) and in decision making discourse (Condon, 1986). Microanalytically, okay was found to be common as a third-turn receipt by current speaker and, like so, as a post-digression marker (Bangerter and Clark, 2003.) Okay is also frequently employed as a backchannel signal (Swales & Malczewski, 2001), as a marker in closing sequences (Edmondson, 1981), and a pre-close (Schegloff & Sacks, 1973). Please cite this article in press as: House, J., Developing pragmatic competence in English as a lingua franca: Using discourse markers to express (inter)subjectivity and connectivity, Journal of Pragmatics (2013), http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.pragma.2013.03.001
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In the data on hand, okay was found to function globally and locally in an even greater variety of functions and positions, i.e. as: 1. Opener, Starter and Attention Getter marking a change in a speaker’s orientation and awareness 2. Structural Marker serving as a linking device between different discourse segments, and as a marker of structural boundaries 3. Check on discourse progression, on alter’s comprehension and as a common ground question-tag (with rising intonation) 4. Signal of receipt, approval, consent, generally expressing interactional co-operative stance 5. Pre-close and closing signal 6. Sealing outcome signal (Edmondson and House, 1981) Here are some examples of the acquisition and strategic use of okay in its many functions and positions. In excerpt 11, okay operates as a discourse opener and a linking device. In excerpt 12, okay is also used (by P) as an Opener, and (by S) as an uptaker signaling receipt of alter’s message. Excerpt 11 P: OKAY NOW we can start (laughs) okay whats your problem? S: Erm I I want to register my Bachelor course Excerpt 12 P: Okay what’s your QUESTION? S: Okay I want to know what I need for me to register In excerpt 13, okay is used by S in his first turn as an uptaker signaling receipt and approval, and by P in his second turn as a Pre-Close. S then responds with a sealing outcome signal followed by P’s responding sealing outcome signal. Excerpt 13 P: How can you exploit this info and for the applied research yeah and then if you read this S: Okay maybe [name] is coming too P: Okay next time if you just tell me who is coming yeah just come again at ten o’clock and then we see what to do S: Okay P: Okay In Excerpt 14, we find a sequence of three okays. S first uses okay to indicate that he agrees with the suggestion put forward by P. P then uses okay (with rising intonation) as a comprehension check, followed by another uptaking and agreeing okay by S. Since S follows his last okay with a request, we can interpret it also as a marker of a structural boundary, linking two discourse segments. Excerpt 14 P: But I think we can do it up to next Thursday S: Up top next Thursday P: So perhaps you can ask with them if it is possible to wait until that date S: okay P: okay? S: okay (2 s) and I wanted to ask you a question Another example of the use of the marker okay (by A) as a comprehension check in an adjacency pair (uttered loudly and with emphasis) and as an uptaker (by S) expressing receipt and agreement is given in Excerpt 15. Excerpt 15 A: I mean after that you can make many ah much vacation as you like to you know yah (loudly) OKAY? S: okay yah In the next excerpt, 16, we can see how in P’s last turn, okay is first used as a structural boundary marker closing and sealing the previous segment of the discourse. In the same turn, following a hesitation marker, P then uses okay as a marker indicating his resumption of speech, i.e., he uses it as a ‘starter’ in Edmondson and House’s (1981) terminology. Please cite this article in press as: House, J., Developing pragmatic competence in English as a lingua franca: Using discourse markers to express (inter)subjectivity and connectivity, Journal of Pragmatics (2013), http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.pragma.2013.03.001
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Excerpt 16 P: And you know what are the graded? S: That’s right Sir P: Starting with zero and ending with fifteen? S: That’s right P: okay erm okay the erm how many tries do you HAVE? These examples show the important potential of the discourse marker okay for ELF speakers. We have here a case of the re-interpretation in a different sense: okay is used by ELF speakers in an even greater variety of different functions than the ones that were documented in the literature reviewed for native talk above. In the Interlanguage literature, this phenomenon would have been described as a case of ‘‘over-representation’’ of a particular token, but since ELF speakers are not to be regarded as ‘‘defective users of English’’, but rather as users of English in their own right, it is appropriate to evaluate the multifunctional use of okay as a sign of well-developed pragmatic competence. Taken together, ELF participants examined in this paper have managed to make strategic use of the high-frequency and multi-functional discourse markers yes/yeah/ja, so and okay for structuring and linking discourse segments inside and across turns, and for expressing (inter) subjectivity. The ELF users examined here engaged in a functional variation of the marker yes/yeah/ja such that they used yes to express agreement; yeah as a useful filler, uptaker and self-prompt and German L1 token ja as a code-switch signal of L1 identity and a back-channel signal. So is used to index ELF speakers’ focus on their own talk, to signal resumption of speech after pauses and hesitations, to help speakers gain time and to act as a self-prompt after momentary mental ‘absences’. In using the multifunctional ‘minimax’ discourse marker okay, ELF speakers managed to efficiently open interactions, segment them into phases, indicate structural boundaries and pre-closes, close and seal outcomes in mid-and end-turns and in code-switched sequences. This is not to say, of course, that native English speakers may not also engage in such creative re-interpretation of the discourse markers examined here. This may certainly happen, but it was not this author’s intention in this study to make explicit comparisons between ELF and native use of the English language, rather the focus of this study was first and foremost on ELF interactional behavior. 6. Conclusion The ELF users examined in this study were shown to display appropriate pragmatic competence combined with what has been called ‘pragmatic fluency’ (House, 1996), i.e. the ability to master smooth continuity in ongoing talk. ELF users were found to achieve this by creatively re-interpreting the discourse markers yes/yeah, so and okay for their own discourse structuring purposes and for the expression of their own perspective on the discourse as well as for expressing a concern for their interlocutor. ELF users engaged in academic consultation hours have developed pragmatic competence by strategically engaging in supportive interactional behavior for their own and their interlocutor’s benefit. They were found to be able to express (inter)subjectivity and connectivity via re-interpreting the high-frequency discourse markers yes/yeah, so and okay. Note: The transcription used in this paper is simplified here for better readability. Capitals emphasis = latching [] overlap or translation into English of foreign language items () description of verbal and non-verbal behavior, length of pauses in seconds (. . .) unclear (.) very short pause @ laughter ? rising intonation : vowel lengthening Bold highlighting phenomenon under discussion Proper names are anonymized, e.g. [river 1]
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(Im)politeness in English as a lingua franca discourse. In: Locher, M., Straessle, J. (Eds.), Standards and Norms in the English Language. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, pp. 351--366. House, Juliane, 2009. Subjectivity in English as lingua franca discourse: the case of you know. Intercultural Pragmatics 6 (2), 171--194. House, Juliane, 2010. The Pragmatics of English as a lingua franca. In: Trosborg, A. (Ed.), Pragmatics across Languages and Cultures. Handbook of Pragmatics, vol. 7. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin/New York, pp. 363--390. House, Juliane, 2011. Global and intercultural communication. In: Andersen, G., Aijmer, K. (Eds.), Pragmatics of Society. Handbook of Pragmatics, vol. 5. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin/New York, pp. 607--626. House, Juliane, Lévy-Tödter, Magdalène, 2009. Languagen authority and face in academic English lingua franca advising sessions. In: LévyTödter, M., Meer, D. (Eds.), Hochschulkommunikation in der Diskussion. Peter Lang, Frankfurt/Main, pp. 157--178. House, Juliane, Lévy-Tödter, Magdalène, 2010. Linguistic competence and professional identity in English medium instruction. In: Apfelbaum, B., Meyer, B. (Eds.), Multilingualism at Work. Benjamins, Amsterdam, pp. 13--46. House, Juliane, Rehbein, Jochen, 2004. What is multilingual communication? In: House, J., Rehbein, J. (Eds.), Multilingual Communication. Benjamins, Amsterdam, pp. 1--17. Johnson, Alison, 2002. ‘‘So. . .?’’: Pragmatic implications of so-prefaced questions in formal police interviews. In: Cotterill, J. (Ed.), Language in the Legal Process. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, pp. 91--110. Kerekes, Julie, 2003. Distrust: A determining factor in the outcomes of gatekeeping encounters. In: House, J., Kasper, G., Ross, S. (Eds.), Misunderstanding in Social Life. Discourse Approaches to Problematic Talk. Longman, London, pp. 227--257. Liao, Silvie, 2009. Variation in the Use of Discourse Markers by Chinese Teaching Assistants in the US. Journal of Pragmatics 41, 1313--1328. 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Developing pragmatic competence in English as a lingua franca: Using discourse markers to express (inter)subjectivity and connectivity Juliane House * Hamburg University, Lagerlöfstr. 25, 22391 Hamburg, Germany Received 5 June 2012; received in revised form 13 January 2013; accepted 4 March 2013
Abstract The paper investigates how ELF speakers improve their pragmatic competence by using the discourse markers yes/yeah, so and okay as expressions of (inter)subjectivity and connectivity. The data discussed in this paper stems from university consultation hours, and it is part of a larger project conducted at the University of Hamburg on multilingualism and multiculturalism in the international university. Findings of the case studies described in this paper suggest that speakers of English as a lingua franca in academic consultation hours tend to strategically re-interpret certain discourse markers in order to help themselves improve their pragmatic competence and thus function smoothly in the flow of talk. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Discourse markers; English as a lingua franca; (Inter)subjectivity; Connectivity; Pragmatic competence
1. Introduction In this paper I want to demonstrate how speakers of English as a lingua franca (ELF) learn how to function smoothly in a type of interaction in which none of the participants are native speakers of the language used. The data reported on in this paper is part of a larger project on multilingualism and multiculturalism in the international university. I will here look at how international students and academic staff participating in academic consultation hours conducted in ELF manage to develop pragmatic competence via the use of certain high-frequency discourse markers as indicators of (inter) subjectivity and connectivity. The findings of the analyses of this data reveal how ELF users come to effectively vary native English use of these markers for their own benefit by strategically re-interpreting them both for their own and their interactants’ purposes in discourse. Before tackling the data, I will first briefly deal with the phenomena relevant to this paper: (inter)subjectivity, connectivity, ELF and the larger project context from which the present data is taken. 2. (Inter)subjectivity and connectivity Subjectivity was defined by Benveniste (1966) as the ability of a speaker to present himself or herself in and through language as a ‘subject’, and to indicate his or her attitude towards, and assessment of the proposition in an utterance. Benveniste set up an apparatus of ‘enunciation’ consisting of deictic elements that point to things that are physically
* Tel.: +49 40 5360627. E-mail address: [email protected]. 0378-2166/$ -- see front matter © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2013.03.001
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present in a face-to-face situation, the deictic pronoun first person singular, the local and temporal adverbs referring to the here and now, as well as items such as (in their English equivalents) you, over there, immediately or certain adverbial expressions of opinion such as for instance, in my opinion, honestly etc. Smith (2002) has examined subjectivity firstly in terms of ‘point of view’ in which a certain way of looking at what is expressed in a text or discourse is revealed either directly in acts of communication or indirectly as contents of mind and evaluation, and secondly as ‘perspective’ which refers for instance to reports of personal experience that may be direct, indirect or inferred. According to Smith, every linguistic element can be used to express point of view or perspective as long as processes of thinking are always involved. In systemic-functional linguistics, subjectivity relates to the interpersonal metafunction, and to the dimension of Tenor, specifically to Stance, i.e. the cognitive and affective attitude of a speaker towards the events and states of affairs s/he is describing when producing or receiving an utterance (Halliday, 1994). Subjectivity in this understanding also relates to the function certain linguistic elements have in influencing the hearer or addressee in interaction such that there exists a close relationship between subjectivity and addressee orientation, and thus to what one may call ‘intersubjectivity’. In any interaction, speakers use many linguistic means to express this intersubjectivity: personal pronouns, temporal and local adverbials in order to guide their interactants’ interpretation of events and states of affairs expressed in the discourse. On many different linguistic levels, the expression of (inter)subjectivity is part of speakers’ concern with positioning themselves in the discourse, and via this positioning guiding and influencing interactants’ inferencing processes. Another means of expressing intersubjectivity in the sense of guiding addressee through the discourse has been referred to as ‘connectivity’. I define ‘connectivity’ as a linguistic phenomenon subsuming linguistic devices that interconnect units of text and discourse and create relations between these units. The concept of connectivity has recently been described with particular reference to its role in multlingual communication by House and Rehbein (2004) and Rehbein et al. (2007). In its broad sense, connectivity is concerned with phenomena of linguistic interaction in different aspects of grammar, prosody, text and discourse. Important is here the role played by various linguistic elements used for interconnecting units of text and discourse as well as the linguistic forms employed and their functions. An example would be the use of the discourse marker so to create connections between stretches of discourse -- which will be discussed in detail below. Connectivity has recently received increasing attention by researchers who focused on typological and contrastive phenomena (cf. e.g. Berman, 1998; Behrens and Fabricius-Hansen, 2002) and on aspects of the meaning and function of discourse or pragmatic markers (cf. e.g. Fischer, 2006; Aijmer and Simon-Vandenbergen, 2006). As House (2006) and Rehbein et al. (2007) point out, connectivity is by no means identical with ‘context’-- the latter being a much broader and more elusive concept which goes beyond the linguistic phenomena we are trying to capture here with the concept of connectivity. In a sense, we can say, with Rehbein et al. (2007: 3), that the linguistic means of connectivity make a text or discourse at least partially independent of context. Having briefly described what I mean by (inter)subjectivity and connectivity as the phenomena for which the acquisition and use of the discourse makers to be investigated will be important, I will now take a closer look at the genre in which these markers have come to be used. 3. Academic consultation hours as an instance of institutional discourse Early research into academic consultation hours focused on the advisors’ positions of authority in the institution for which they act as ‘gate-keepers’ (Erickson and Shultz, 1982; Kerekes, 2003). One of the major objectives of these studies, most of which originated in the United States, was students’ competence in English and the native-versus-non-native issue. Thus, for instance Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford (2005) discuss interlanguage pragmatics phenomena in academic discourse between native and non-native English interactants. In the context of academic advising sessions in the MUMIS project, which I will describe below, we are dealing with ELF interactants none of whom has English as their native language. In a European context, research into academic institutional discourse in the international university has shifted away from the native-non-native paradigm. An example of this new research interest in academic institutional discourse is the work done inside the CALPIU -- Cultural and Linguistic Practices in the International University -- Research Center at Roskilde University (see e.g. Mortensen, 2010; Preisler et al., 2011). Other important work in this area has been done by Mauranen and her team with the ELFA and SELF projects (cf. e.g. Mauranen, 2012). What happens in academic consultation hours? Typically, such interactions are concerned with students’ current states of affairs, their study situation, qualification and certification issues, students’ future activities, as well as learning problems, their causes or potential solutions. The interactional role of counseling in academic consultation hours typically offered by university professors includes displaying expertise and ‘‘emphasizing their engagement with the addressee’’ (Bolden, 2006). Turn-taking, topic introductions, pauses, overlap, interruptions and various linguistic expressions used to indicate interactants’ positioning in the discourse are some of the indicators for the progression of the covert or overt interactional agenda of academic advisors and advisees. 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4. The use of ELF in academic consultation hours in the international university A particular case of academic consultation hours is the one conducted in a language which is not the native tongue of any of the participants. This happens when the English language is used in its function as a lingua franca. ELF can be described as English used in a specific context characterized by an enormous functional and formal variability and a multiplicity of voices. It is used as a means of communication, a medium that can be given substance with different national, regional, local, and individual cultural identities. Nevertheless, ELF users’ native pragmatic norms are more often than not maintained. When English is used in interactions between, say, German, Spanish and French speakers, differences in interactional norms, standards of politeness, directness, values, feelings of cultural and historical tradition tend to remain intact. These norms are not shared, nor need they be. Localized, regionalized or otherwise appropriated varieties - whose linguistic surface is English, but whose speakers creatively conduct pragmatic shifts in their use of this auxiliary language - are taking over the linguistic landscape. ELF speakers are developing their own discourse strategies, speech act modifications, genres and communicative styles, reinterpreting linguistic expressions for their own benefit, as we shall see below. As long as a threshold of understanding is achieved, ELF participants appear to adopt a ‘‘let-it-pass’’ principle, an interpretive procedure which makes the interactional style ‘‘robust’’, ‘‘normal’’ and ordinary (Firth, 1996). This ordinariness is a joint achievement of interactants, who successfully engage in their interactional and interpretive work in order to sustain the appearance of normality despite being exposed to each other’s highly variable linguistic behavior. An important general characteristic of ELF interactions is their inherent variability (Dewey, 2009; Firth, 2009). This variability lies at the core of ELF discourse, where speakers creatively and strategically exploit, intentionally appropriate, locally adapt and communicatively align the potential inherent in the forms and functions, items and collocations of ‘‘the virtual English language’’ (cf. Widdowson, 2003: 50, Seidlhofer, 2011, chapter 5), to which they take recourse in their performance as the need arises (cf. Cogo and Dewey, 2006; Seidlhofer and Widdowson, 2007). ELF interactants regard themselves as united in different ‘‘communities of practice’’ (House, 2003). The notion ‘‘community of practice’’ (Wenger, 1989) is most appropriate for ELF in that the constitution of a community of practice is governed by a joint purpose. In the case of the academic consultation hours examined below, the overriding purpose of this community of practice seems to be that of sorting out academic issues related to a particular course of studies. This purpose is best achieved through effective communication via ELF as a convenient tool. Two other important aspects of a community of practice are members’ mutual engagement in regular interaction and a shared repertoire of various kinds of resources (buildings, access to equipment, syllabi, specific terminology used in the course of study, conventions of address etc.). Both these conditions certainly apply to the ELF academic consultation talk to be examined below, so we may be justified in referring to them as a particular community of practice. Inside ELF academic consultation interactions as a community of practice to be examined below, expressions of (inter) subjectivity and connectivity can be considered to further increase a sense of sharedness and community. Having clarified the most important concepts underlying the empirical work to be presented below, I will now briefly review previous relevant work done in the context of the larger project of which the current study is a part. A project specifically concerned with ELF talk in academic consultation hours is the Hamburg ELF project funded since 2008 by the Volkswagen Stiftung (House, 2008, 2009; Baumgarten and House, 2007, House and Lévy-Tödter, 2009, 2010). In this project we examine ELF academic consultation talk between international students and their academic advisors, professors and assistants as well as post hoc interviews for collaborative interpretation. Previous analyses of ELF academic consultation hours (e.g. Baumgarten and House, 2007, 2010; House, 2009) point to participants’ strategic employment of expressions of (inter) subjectivity and connectivity through re-interpreting the discourse markers you know, I mean, I think, I don’t know. You know has generally been described in the literature as an interpersonal, other-oriented marker used as a hedge and a marker of politeness. House (2009) put forward the hypothesis that you know tends to be re-interpreted by ELF interactants in such a way that it becomes a more self-referenced way of highlighting both formulation difficulties and coherence relations in speakers’ own turns. The results of House’s analysis show a surprisingly frequent co-occurrence of you know and the conjunctions but, and, because. When you know co-occurs with these conjunctions, it acts as a focusing strategy, making the adversative, additive or causal relation expressed by these conjunctions more salient. You know also functions as a coherence marker in a different sense: it tends to be employed whenever the speaker is momentarily ‘‘incoherent’’, cannot find the right words, fumbles for an appropriate formulation, and tries to repair a misstep using you know to reveal planning difficulties. The original meaning of you know is clearly no longer predominant in ELF talk, i.e. you know is primarily used to help ELF speakers own thinking and verbalization processes and their processes of planning their own output, and linking spans of the discourse they enact -- clearly expressions of subjectivity and connectivity. The discourse markers I think, I don’t know and I mean are also re-interpreted in ELF talk (Baumgarten and House, 2007, 2010). As compared to native speakers of English, ELF speakers make frequent use of the constructions I think and I don’t know in their prototypical meanings. They prefer to use these constructions as main clause complement structures Please cite this article in press as: House, J., Developing pragmatic competence in English as a lingua franca: Using discourse markers to express (inter)subjectivity and connectivity, Journal of Pragmatics (2013), http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.pragma.2013.03.001
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over the more grammaticalized structures and pragmaticalized meanings as these are expressed in the verbal routine forms preferred by native speakers of English. For instance, I think in ELF talk is used to express the speaker’s subjective opinion, and I don’t know is used as a marker of the speaker’s insufficient knowledge about the topic of the discourse. These uses clearly indicate that ELF speakers have re-interpreted the native speaker usage of these discourse markers. The expression I mean tends to be used with a strong evaluative element in ELF talk over and above the marker’s main function of reformulation/clarification (Baumgarten and House, 2007), i.e., I mean acts as a focalizing device in a speaker’s contributions to the discourse. It is a point of departure for the speaker’s explicit expression of his/her subjective evaluation, signaling emotional involvement in the topic at hand. Given these results, the current study examines whether a similar tendency to express (inter)subjectivity and/or connectivity can be detected in ELF speaker’s acquisition and use of the discourse markers yes/yeah, so and okay. 5. The current study: developing pragmatic competence with regard to the strategic employment of discourse markers: Yes/Yeah, So and Okay The data basis of the current study consists of 42 audio-recorded and transcribed 10--30 min ELF academic consultation hours talk between German university professors (P), their assistants (A) and international graduate (post MA) ERASMUS students from Spain (S). The purpose of the current study is to examine how these subjects managed to increase their pragmatic competence using the discourse makers yes/yeah, so and okay. These three markers were found to be not only used highly frequently by all the participants in the study, but also with many different functions, such as uptaking, discourse structuring, back-channeling, agreeing, expressing consensus, as we will see below. 5.1. The discourse marker yes/yeah The marker yeah/yes is employed by ELF speakers with several different functions (Spielmann, 2007) such as uptaking (alter’s message), back-channeling (both supporting alter’s message and signaling that no claim for turn takeover is being made), agreeing with alter’s moves and structuring discourse. Face-saving features which accompany the overall inoffensive undertone of yes/yeah make this marker particularly suitable for ELF talk, where interactants tend to be aware of the precarious nature of their intercultural interaction. ELF speakers thus often exploit the positive impact of yeah/ yes to downtone face-threatening acts. In line with Wong’s (2000:6) findings of the use of yeah in non-native English talk, yeah used in ELF talk may serve as a sign of ‘‘self-presentational display’’ suggesting that non-native speakers are generally more attentive of what they say. Like you know, yeah can also be used as a self-supporting strategy. Most instances of yeah found in Spielmann’s data match the three major categories: backchannel signals, agreement markers and discourse structurers. The frequent use of yeah/yes in ELF discourse can best be explained with its polyfunctionality a characteristic that makes its use ‘‘communicatively effective’’ because a lot of pragmatic content of back-chaneling, agreeing and discourse structuring is here packed into minimal verbal form. In the present study, the use of yeah/yes supports the results obtained by Liao (2009), who pointed out that yeah/yes tends to occur with great frequency in interview type talk because this type of talk generally involves more turn-taking than other types of talks such as small talk or discussions, with the marker yes/yeah occurring typically around turn taking. The first interesting finding with regard to the use of yes/yeah is that the token yes seems to be preferred by ELF speakers whenever they genuinely agree to questions or statements produced by their interlocutors. Consider excerpts 1 and 2: Excerpt 1 P: okay next thing you know on the fourteenth of Ju June there is a German AUTag just for your [information] S: [AUTag nee] P: it’s where you are coming here S: it’s here at the TU? P: yes yes yes once a year there is a so-called AUTag. . . Excerpt 2 P: then you should also state this erm within your CV S: but it’s it’s also in my CV I mean (0.5) I don’t have any other erm records and erm what about for example do I need reference letters? P: yes if you ha:ve of course The token yeah is used in this data more regularly and in many more varied positions than the token yes. Of the three major functions of yeah in ELF talk suggested by Spielmann (2007) - agreeing, discourse structuring, backchanneling, it is Please cite this article in press as: House, J., Developing pragmatic competence in English as a lingua franca: Using discourse markers to express (inter)subjectivity and connectivity, Journal of Pragmatics (2013), http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.pragma.2013.03.001
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the discourse structuring function via the use of yeah which predominates in the office hours data examined in this study. Yeah tends to be used in order to monitor and organize speakers’ own contributions to the talk, simultaneously taking up and taking in what their interlocutors have said, rather than to agree with alter’s move. When using yeah, ELF speakers seem to be more self-oriented, i.e., they try to gain time both for coming to terms with their interlocutors’ utterance and for getting on with their own discourse planning and production. In excerpt 3, yes is used to signal agreement and yeah to structure the discourse turn-initially. Excerpt 3 P: and we will send it er to the man who is er supporting (soft) this (soft) S: under your name? P: yes S: so that will be be (0.5) your okay endorsement P: yes this is my my my support yeah my recommendation S: allright that’s @@ that’s better P: @@ S: yeah then erm well I just was talking to erm And in Excerpts 4 and 5 yeah is also used to fill perceived gaps and structure the discourse, also turn-internally and turn-finally. Excerpt 4 P: there there is uh one week where the building companies come to to to the university and they make some presentation and = S: = ahh this week yeah P: this one week erm yeah but I cannot do it I have to go(0.5) here this week S: yeah the week of civil engineering yeah Excerpt 5 S: because then it will be a very heavy heavy weight producter P: @@ erm yeah but erm you mentioned before a four level bridge no S: that wasn’t me P: yeah no what what you mentioned erm what subject in the past you have erm had in mind. . . In excerpt 5, the immediate juxtaposition of yeah and no shows that yeah is here not used to indicate simple agreement. Rather it acts as an uptaking and discourse structuring device. Interactants in this office hours data were also found to fall back onto the use of the German native language ja as a backchannel signal, or a so-called Go-on (Edmondson, 1981), i.e. a marker with which the speaker tells his/her interlocutor that s/he can ‘go on talking’ because there will be no claim on her/his turn. Consider excerpt 6: Excerpt 6: P: you send the pdf file I think S: erm in pdf I read erm okay in computer but I don’t print P: the printing is is wrong only the printing or? S: I think only the printing [because] P: [jajaja] S: in my file is okay P: strange S: in in your file is okay in computer? In excerpt 7, the German L1 marker ja is again used as a Go-on, with the marker yes indexing agreement: Excerpt 7: S: erm I have currently I have prepared them (0.5) in English = P: =ja S: and I also want send them too in German which I’ve not yet sent anywhere cause I’ve just prepared them with help of some [friends] Please cite this article in press as: House, J., Developing pragmatic competence in English as a lingua franca: Using discourse markers to express (inter)subjectivity and connectivity, Journal of Pragmatics (2013), http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.pragma.2013.03.001
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P: S: P: S: P:
[ ja] and colleagues ja I should give a copy of that copy too? yes
Taken together, ELF speakers in this office hours talk seem to have acquired a clear functional variation in the use of the tokens yes, yeah and code-switched German L1 ja. They use yes with maximal attention and awareness when they want to signal agreement, often in question-answer sequences. They use yeah with less awareness. Yeah can be said to indicate a speaker’s more automatic focus on the discourse progression monitoring a speaker’s own utterance and signalling uptake. And a speaker’s relapse into his or her L1 in producing ja seems to be an indication of a heightened degree of automaticity, i.e. a state of ‘non-thinking’. All three variants are not only signs of ELF speakers’ acquisition of modes of expressions of (inter)subjectivity, they are also acquired and used to index connectivity: they structure the discourse and provide linkage across and inside turns. While yes as a signal of agreement is clearly mainly alter-oriented marking intersubjectivity, yeah and ja also express subjectivity and intersubjectivity: yeah as a self-prompt and uptaker, ja as a signal of L1 identity and an expression of solidarity with one’s interactants. Clearly, interactants in this academic consultation hours talk have developed an important ‘slice’ of strategic competence in ELF talk. These findings are also supported in other ELF work (cf. House, 2010, 2011). 5.2. The discourse marker so The analysis of the interactional behavior of the marker so in this ELF data shows that so is here acquired and used mainly as a useful speaker-supportive element. So functions primarily as a deictic element that speakers use to support them in the planning of upcoming moves and as a means of ‘‘looking backwards’’ summing up previous discourse stretches. So in native German discourse has been characterized as a complex double-bind element, acting as a sort of (mental) hinge between what has come before and what will occur next in the discourse (cf. e.g. Ehlich, 2007; Barske and Golato, 2010). As concerns native English discourse, the marker so has often been described as signaling causal and inferential connections between clauses, and introducing a new topic. Blakemore (1988) has argued that so marks inferences, and Raymond (2004) claims that so, if standing alone, is used to prompt the listener to produce a follow-up move. In a different vein, Johnson (2002) has argued that so can also be used to preface questions acting as a topic developer. In more recent work on the pragmatic functions of English so, Bolden (2006, 2009) describes it as launching sequences of new actions. She argues that so used sequence-initially has been on the speaker’s ‘agenda’ for some time, being relevantly pending, and she refers to so as a marker of ‘‘emergence from incipiency’’ (2006: 663), claiming that its use conveys to the addressee that the upcoming course of action is ‘emerging from incipiency’ and has already been on the interactional agenda for some time. According to Bolden, so is often used when a speaker has to deal with an interactional problem typically arising whenever the current utterance occurs not as a sequence to the immediately preceding talk and helps answer the question ‘‘why that now’’, telling the listener to interpret the following move as one belonging to a pending one (Bolden, 2009: 996). Bolden suggests that so more often than not precedes sequences that accomplish other-attentive courses of action. It is clearly alter-oriented, ‘‘doing other attentiveness’’ in social interaction (2006: 664) and acting as a resource for accomplishing alter’s understanding. As opposed to these findings with native English talk, ELF speakers were found to have acquired and used so in functions that are very different: so in this ELF talk does not index other-attentiveness. Rather, it is realized in connection with selfattentive matters. So is therefore not used with a strong interpersonal function, but rather acquires a predominantly text structuring and self-supporting function, also acting as a stop-gap ‘‘fumble’’ (Edmondson, 1981) helping the speaker bridge formulation problems. ELF speakers in the data on hand seem to have acquired so when they need a self-monitoring filler to prevent conversational breakdown. So thus follows hesitation markers ‘‘erm’’, ‘‘hmm’’, or pauses of varying lengths. And so also often collocates with the connector and. These co-occurrences can be taken as evidence for the use of so as a selfprompting strategy to monitor a speaker’s output, marking his/her resumption of speech after hesitations and pauses both turn-initially and in mid-turn. This use of so confirms Redeker’s (2006: 342) description of so as primarily a marker of discourse segment transitions, so being placed at the end of a segment, before the next segment and initiating a return to a previous segment. Our data shows all of these positions. Consider excerpts 8 and 9: Excerpt 8 S: I actually better take some notes P: mhm (1) so: there is ONE one man er he is working for erm for [company 1] S: [mhm] P: [and] erm so he is er in the erm working in (.) with the er design and calculation of [company 1] Please cite this article in press as: House, J., Developing pragmatic competence in English as a lingua franca: Using discourse markers to express (inter)subjectivity and connectivity, Journal of Pragmatics (2013), http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.pragma.2013.03.001
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P’s use of so in both his turns in excerpt 8 is clearly not back-referenced to S’s announcement that he will take notes during their talk. Rather, following the hesitation signal mhm and the pause, the connector and and the hesitation marker erm, P seems to use so to ‘‘get himself going again’’ and resume the train of thought expressed in his previous move: Excerpt 9 S: and ja I also have a question about that I mean I think erm (1.5) the erm procedures are a little different in Germany how do you generally apply to er firms like this for [Diplomarbeit] P: [mhm mhm mhm] S: or master thesis P: okay S: is it just erm= P: =it should be at first a letter erm where you erm you are stating er WHO who you are and what you are doing so you are studying at this university and in this in this program and erm so within this program you have a a module in composites and so you are interesting in the subject and you are asking erm erm for a a a a a subject a a a master thesis subject in this= S: =in this field yeah In his first use of so in excerpt 9, P uses so in mid-turn, initiating an elaboration of the previous phrase ‘‘what you are doing’’, i.e. using so to egg himself on with his explanation. In its second occurrence, so follows a hesitation marker, and in the third occurrence it follows the connector and -- in both these cases so introduces further elaborations and explanations. Excerpt 10 is another example of the strategic use of so for preventing a potential breakdown of the talk. One may hypothesize that P is not capable of continuing the if-sentence he started formulating. He therefore inserted the marker so, and after its production he continues to formulate the utterance with a presumably more manageable declarative main clause. Excerpt 10 S: hm hm P: and twelve of the other part S: okay P: [yeah] P: [it’s] depending on you what you need and if you erm so so I give you this plan and on the courses attend the courses. . . Taken together, ELF speakers in the above data seem to have acquired the use of the marker so as a predominantly speaker-supportive strategy in co-occurrence with hesitations, pauses and breaks in the discourse thus indexing a speaker’s focus on his/her own talk, signalling resumption of the talk and helping him/her gain time while acting strategically as a self-prompt. One may hypothesize that the use of so in this ELF data interestingly differs both from the use of English native so and also the German homograph/so/as it is used in native German talk, but this hypothesis needs to be further investigated with different data and in-depth analyses, which goes beyond the remit of this paper. In a sense, so can also be said to display the speaker’s mental processes (Fischer, 2006: 445), anchoring the discourse in a particular co-text and context, and contextualizing the speaker and her processes of perception, planning, understanding, and affective stance. In being enabled to use so in this manner, ELF speakers can effectively express (inter)subjectivity and connectivity and thus advance their pragmatic competence. 5.3. The discourse marker okay The discourse marker okay is one of the most versatile, most broadly applicable and most frequently used discourse markers. In being able to use the multifunctional discourse marker okay, ELF speakers can achieve a maximum of interactional functions with a minimum of linguistic and cognitive effort in a variety of different interactional positions. Okay seems to be particularly widespread in academic discourse in the natural sciences as Schleef (2005, 2008) has documented. Okay has also been shown to be common in classroom talk (Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975; Edmondson and House, 1981), in meetings or phone-calls (Beach, 1993) and in decision making discourse (Condon, 1986). Microanalytically, okay was found to be common as a third-turn receipt by current speaker and, like so, as a post-digression marker (Bangerter and Clark, 2003.) Okay is also frequently employed as a backchannel signal (Swales & Malczewski, 2001), as a marker in closing sequences (Edmondson, 1981), and a pre-close (Schegloff & Sacks, 1973). Please cite this article in press as: House, J., Developing pragmatic competence in English as a lingua franca: Using discourse markers to express (inter)subjectivity and connectivity, Journal of Pragmatics (2013), http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.pragma.2013.03.001
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In the data on hand, okay was found to function globally and locally in an even greater variety of functions and positions, i.e. as: 1. Opener, Starter and Attention Getter marking a change in a speaker’s orientation and awareness 2. Structural Marker serving as a linking device between different discourse segments, and as a marker of structural boundaries 3. Check on discourse progression, on alter’s comprehension and as a common ground question-tag (with rising intonation) 4. Signal of receipt, approval, consent, generally expressing interactional co-operative stance 5. Pre-close and closing signal 6. Sealing outcome signal (Edmondson and House, 1981) Here are some examples of the acquisition and strategic use of okay in its many functions and positions. In excerpt 11, okay operates as a discourse opener and a linking device. In excerpt 12, okay is also used (by P) as an Opener, and (by S) as an uptaker signaling receipt of alter’s message. Excerpt 11 P: OKAY NOW we can start (laughs) okay whats your problem? S: Erm I I want to register my Bachelor course Excerpt 12 P: Okay what’s your QUESTION? S: Okay I want to know what I need for me to register In excerpt 13, okay is used by S in his first turn as an uptaker signaling receipt and approval, and by P in his second turn as a Pre-Close. S then responds with a sealing outcome signal followed by P’s responding sealing outcome signal. Excerpt 13 P: How can you exploit this info and for the applied research yeah and then if you read this S: Okay maybe [name] is coming too P: Okay next time if you just tell me who is coming yeah just come again at ten o’clock and then we see what to do S: Okay P: Okay In Excerpt 14, we find a sequence of three okays. S first uses okay to indicate that he agrees with the suggestion put forward by P. P then uses okay (with rising intonation) as a comprehension check, followed by another uptaking and agreeing okay by S. Since S follows his last okay with a request, we can interpret it also as a marker of a structural boundary, linking two discourse segments. Excerpt 14 P: But I think we can do it up to next Thursday S: Up top next Thursday P: So perhaps you can ask with them if it is possible to wait until that date S: okay P: okay? S: okay (2 s) and I wanted to ask you a question Another example of the use of the marker okay (by A) as a comprehension check in an adjacency pair (uttered loudly and with emphasis) and as an uptaker (by S) expressing receipt and agreement is given in Excerpt 15. Excerpt 15 A: I mean after that you can make many ah much vacation as you like to you know yah (loudly) OKAY? S: okay yah In the next excerpt, 16, we can see how in P’s last turn, okay is first used as a structural boundary marker closing and sealing the previous segment of the discourse. In the same turn, following a hesitation marker, P then uses okay as a marker indicating his resumption of speech, i.e., he uses it as a ‘starter’ in Edmondson and House’s (1981) terminology. Please cite this article in press as: House, J., Developing pragmatic competence in English as a lingua franca: Using discourse markers to express (inter)subjectivity and connectivity, Journal of Pragmatics (2013), http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.pragma.2013.03.001
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Excerpt 16 P: And you know what are the graded? S: That’s right Sir P: Starting with zero and ending with fifteen? S: That’s right P: okay erm okay the erm how many tries do you HAVE? These examples show the important potential of the discourse marker okay for ELF speakers. We have here a case of the re-interpretation in a different sense: okay is used by ELF speakers in an even greater variety of different functions than the ones that were documented in the literature reviewed for native talk above. In the Interlanguage literature, this phenomenon would have been described as a case of ‘‘over-representation’’ of a particular token, but since ELF speakers are not to be regarded as ‘‘defective users of English’’, but rather as users of English in their own right, it is appropriate to evaluate the multifunctional use of okay as a sign of well-developed pragmatic competence. Taken together, ELF participants examined in this paper have managed to make strategic use of the high-frequency and multi-functional discourse markers yes/yeah/ja, so and okay for structuring and linking discourse segments inside and across turns, and for expressing (inter) subjectivity. The ELF users examined here engaged in a functional variation of the marker yes/yeah/ja such that they used yes to express agreement; yeah as a useful filler, uptaker and self-prompt and German L1 token ja as a code-switch signal of L1 identity and a back-channel signal. So is used to index ELF speakers’ focus on their own talk, to signal resumption of speech after pauses and hesitations, to help speakers gain time and to act as a self-prompt after momentary mental ‘absences’. In using the multifunctional ‘minimax’ discourse marker okay, ELF speakers managed to efficiently open interactions, segment them into phases, indicate structural boundaries and pre-closes, close and seal outcomes in mid-and end-turns and in code-switched sequences. This is not to say, of course, that native English speakers may not also engage in such creative re-interpretation of the discourse markers examined here. This may certainly happen, but it was not this author’s intention in this study to make explicit comparisons between ELF and native use of the English language, rather the focus of this study was first and foremost on ELF interactional behavior. 6. Conclusion The ELF users examined in this study were shown to display appropriate pragmatic competence combined with what has been called ‘pragmatic fluency’ (House, 1996), i.e. the ability to master smooth continuity in ongoing talk. ELF users were found to achieve this by creatively re-interpreting the discourse markers yes/yeah, so and okay for their own discourse structuring purposes and for the expression of their own perspective on the discourse as well as for expressing a concern for their interlocutor. ELF users engaged in academic consultation hours have developed pragmatic competence by strategically engaging in supportive interactional behavior for their own and their interlocutor’s benefit. They were found to be able to express (inter)subjectivity and connectivity via re-interpreting the high-frequency discourse markers yes/yeah, so and okay. Note: The transcription used in this paper is simplified here for better readability. Capitals emphasis = latching [] overlap or translation into English of foreign language items () description of verbal and non-verbal behavior, length of pauses in seconds (. . .) unclear (.) very short pause @ laughter ? rising intonation : vowel lengthening Bold highlighting phenomenon under discussion Proper names are anonymized, e.g. [river 1]
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Please cite this article in press as: House, J., Developing pragmatic competence in English as a lingua franca: Using discourse markers to express (inter)subjectivity and connectivity, Journal of Pragmatics (2013), http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.pragma.2013.03.001