Relevance and prosody in spoken Danish

ELSEVIER

Journal of Pragmatics 23 (1995) 421~47

Relevance and prosody in spoken Danish Jann Scheuer Institute of Danish Dialectology, Copenhagen University, Njalsgade 80, DK-2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark

Received December 1993; revised version March 1994 Abstract The relation between pragmatics and prosody in Danish is a complex one; it probably is in any language. But since such a relation undisputedly exists, empirical investigations of prosody can be used to test the usefulness of pragmatic theories. In this paper the theory of relevance is put to a test. The point in case is whether relevance theory is useful in predicting stress in spoken Danish from the city of Copenhagen. The results suggest that certain paths must be followed in order to provide adequate hypotheses about prosody in spoken Danish. In short, it seems necessary to go beyond the scope of syntax and semantics, but also beyond the scope of universal pragmatics, i.e. pragmatics based on purely universal principles. Socio-pragmatic and sociological insights must be incorporated in the description if accurate hypotheses are to be formulated; a framework based merely on universal principles of cognitive information processing cannot explain the prosodic phenomena encountered.

1. Introduction In the last decades pragmatic theory has become a very wide paradigm, or rather, pragmatic theory has been divided into several more or less competing paradigms. The cognitive paradigm, as presented by Sperber and Wilson (1986) in their book on relevance theory, is one very influential paradigm. Other authors working within other paradigms insist on a more sociological approach. When doing empirical studies, the choice of a theoretical standpoint is crucial, and the researchers find themselves confronted with practical considerations. In empirical studies the data often seem to favor certain paradigms, and disfavor others. Certain paradigms have a larger explanatory power in relation to given data than others. This paper is about the explanatory power of different pragmatic paradigms. An empirical study of stress on epistemic verbs in authentic spoken Danish is presented, and it is discussed to what extent the study may benefit from relevance-theoretical notions, and to what extent more sociologically motivated paradigms must be used. 0378-2166/95/$09.50 © 1995 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved SSDI 0378-2155 (94)00042-D

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2. The relevance-theoretical model of communication First a short and thus not too elaborate introduction to the relevance-theoretical model of communicative understanding will be given, in order to provide a guide to relevance theory and its relation to the other topics addressed in this paper. For a more elaborate account, confer Sperber and Wilson (1986). Central to communicative understanding in Sperber and Wilson's account is the communicators' accessing and processing of knowledge. The knowledge base that may be accessed by a communicator consists of the total sum of assumptions this person is able to access or construct. The sources may be strictly internal, like that person's individual memory, or they may be external, like things the person can see or hear, or things the person has been told by other communicators. Knowledge may also be calculated by the person; he may construct new assumptions by doing inferential work on the ones already present. Thus, in relevance theory this knowledge reservoir has no upper limit, since it is a potential rather than a fixed amount of knowledge. The very purpose of communication may in fact be formulated in terms of knowledge. Humans communicate to supply each other with new accessible assumptions, to give each other an enlarged knowledge of the world, and thereby a better chance of survival in that same world. In a particular instance of communication the communicator activates a subpart of the potential knowledge available to him. Communication has the effect of bringing certain parts of knowledge to the communicator's attention and also to further alterations to his already existing knowledge. The subpart of knowledge used in a particular instance of communication is called the p r o c e s s i n g context. The meaning of a written sentence depends heavily on the meaning of the text preceding it. Likewise, the meaning of an utterance depends heavily on the heater's processing context, i.e. which part of his knowledge he activates in order to understand the utterance. This point will be illustrated below. Processing contexts in the minds of speakers can, and should, coincide if the communication is to be successful. A certain degree of potential agreement is often provided automatically since it is a consequence of speakers' shared physical environment. If a person talks to another person about something physically present to both, for instance a chair in the room they are in, the assumption that the chair is in the room will be accessible to both of them, and they will have a base of common knowledge and the possibility of constructing fairly similar processing contexts to draw upon in their communication. When somebody repairs his car his physical environment is such that he must think of certain things like screws, bolts and tools of different kinds. But when someone else - or for that matter one and the same person - goes to a linguistic conference, his mind will be occupied with other matters. Depending on the co-text, different sets of assumptions will be activated in his mind, and if he does communicate in one of these situations this present knowledge will be a potential source of information for constructing processing contexts.

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By its very nature, the present knowledge changes all the time. Every time a person sees a new object his activated knowledge changes, and the flux of present knowledge presents a general problem that relevance theory has to deal with. The number of possible subsets to a person's knowledge is infinite, so the speaker has infinite possibilities in choosing the processing context when he tries to understand the meaning of an utterance. Therefore relevance theory has to explain in a convincing way how communicators choose processing contexts during the communication. The crucial task in communication, then, is the task of choosing a proper processing context. Below, it is illustrated how communicators perform this task, according to relevance theory. Imagine a situation with two people, Doris and Peter. They live together, and they have a son, Freddy, who has just gone off to school. Doris and Peter have bought some Christmas presents for Freddy, and they have to wrap them up. This is prescribed by the tradition, and it is very important according to the same tradition that Freddy does not see his presents. Now is a good time to do the wrapping up. Doris says to Peter: Freddy has gone off to school now. This utterance may have different meanings for Peter. Let us consider the meanings and how they come about in Peter's mind. In relevance theory it is extremely important to think in processing contexts, so Peter must be provided with suitable processing contexts. Imagine that Peter's processing context from the beginning, i.e. before he is spoken to, contains these assumptions: P e t e r ' s initial p r o c e s s i n g context

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)

The presents have to be wrapped up. The dishes have to be done. My name is Peter. My uncle's name was Gh6rdis. I am now in the kitchen. Doris and I have not made love for some time. Doris and I get along nicely for the time being.

To understand Doris' utterance, Peter must change this processing context. His job is to provide a processing context that Doris' utterance is related to in a meaningful way. Some of the assumptions above seem rather unrelated to Doris' utterance and the situation as such, other assumptions seem related. None of the assumptions seem directly related to the utterance, so Peter has to form a new processing context with a closer relation to the utterance, a context in which the utterance is more relevant. New processing contexts are constructed by manipulating old ones. Each assumption in Peter's mind is related to other assumptions by association, and he changes his processing context by accessing and activating assumptions associated with the ones already present, and also by drawing inferences on the sets of assumptions

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emerging. He may for instance activate some assumptions associated with the first assumption in the processing context above. The resulting new processing context may then contain the following assumptions: P e t e r ' s n e w p r o c e s s i n g context 1

(1) The presents have to be wrapped up. (8) Presents must be kept secret from the receiver. (9) The presents must be kept secret from Freddy. (10) The presents are for Christmas, which is soon. (11) We must wrap the presents up soon. (12) We can wrap up the presents only when Freddy is not here. Peter has elaborated mainly on the first assumption in his initial processing context. Note that some assumptions from the initial processing context have been de-activated - this is because the processing context is a short-term memory with a limited size. When new assumptions enter, others must leave. In the new context Doris' utterance is highly relevant, it relates to a lot of the assumptions. After a bit more inferential work Peter will get the point, he will reply: Okay then, let's wrap up Freddy's presents now. indicating by the word okay that he has understood the meaning of Doris' utterance. The example illustrates what the meaning of an utterance is, according to the theory of relevance. The meaning of Doris' utterance is not something like W e should wrap up F r e d d y ' s p r e s e n t s n o w or any other paraphrase of the utterance. The meaning of Doris' utterance can only be understood in terms of the effect it has in Peter's mind. The meaning is the change of contexts in Peter's mind, the change in his view of the world, so to speak. Some initial assumptions have disappeared from Peter's processing context and some new ones have been added. Certain aspects of presentgiving rituals, his son Freddy, Christmas which is quickly approaching, Doris' wish to wrap up the presents now, and certain inferences drawn from those assumptions constitute Peter's understanding of the utterance. Note that there are other assumptions in Peter's initial processing context which are able to set off inferences relevant in the situation. If Peter elaborates on the sixth and seventh assumption in his initial processing context, he may end up with a new processing context like this one: P e t e r ' s n e w p r o c e s s i n g context 2

(6) Doris and I have not made love for some time. (7) Doris and I get along nicely for the time being. (16) Doris and I can make love when we get along nicely. (17) We should make love frequently. (18) Freddy should not witness our love-making. (19) We should make love now that Freddy is not here.

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and he may reply Let's go into the bedroom. In the latter processing context Doris' utterance is relevant, quite as relevant as in the first, it seems. Peter may construct any one of the contexts while figuring out what Doris means, but according to relevance theory this is usually not the case. Normally Peter will construct exactly one processing context, because the utterance is optimally relevant in that particular context. Relevance, according to Sperber and Wilson, is measured in two dimensions. One dimension has to do with the relation between the utterance and the processing context, as outlined above. An utterance is more relevant if it relates to more assumptions in the processing context. The relation is not just any relation, the utterance has to have a contextual effect in the processing context. The utterance has to bring about a change in the hearer's knowledge, and the greater the change the greater the contextual effect. If Doris says to Peter Your name is Peter. her utterance relates to assumptions in Peter's knowledge, but he may not be able to construct a processing context in which the utterance has any contextual effect at all. He knows his name already. If this is the case, the utterance is irrelevant. The other dimension of relevance has to do with the accessibility of contexts. An utterance is more relevant if it is easy for the speaker to construct a proper processing context for it. If Peter has to go through a long chain of associations and do a lot of inferential work to construct a processing context that Doris' utterance relates to, that utterance will not be very relevant. If the context comes to him more easily, then the utterance is more relevant. In general communicators have the intention of being relevant. They design utterances according to the principle of optimal relevance. Such utterances are relevant in the two dimensions mentioned above: they have large contextual effects and the assumptions needed in order to understand them are easy to access. We cannot tell which one of the contexts above results in optimal relevance, not without making further assumptions about the contents of Peter's mind: his mood, his general preferences as a human being and so on. But according to relevance theory, it is probable that the contexts have different accessibility, and that one of them will be chosen by Peter as the one resulting in optimal relevance. If Doris uses a special tone of voice it can be a guideline for Peter. A lively tone may guide him towards present-wrapping, and a sexy tone towards love-making. Ostensive signals like these will make Peter choose one and only one processing context: the one in which the utterance is optimally relevant. But possibly, in rare cases, two or more contexts may result in exactly the same relevance. Peter would then have to choose more than one processing context at a time. Obviously, the meaning of Doris' utterance in Peter's mind would not be very clear, and this may at first sight look like a drawback to relevance theory. But in fact

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it is a stronghold. It is by no means obvious that speakers even intend to be clear when they communicate. If Doris' intention is to make Peter think about what activity he would like to undertake, it is quite sensible of her to invoke several possibilities in his mind at once, without pointing to any one of them in particular. Peter m a y then choose for himself. Communication involving more than one meaning at a time is elegantly handled by relevance theory.

3. T h e p r o b l e m with epistemic verbs in Danish The usefulness of the relevance-theoretical model of communication will be discussed and to some extent tested in this paper by empirical studies on the use of stress on epistemic verbs in Danish. The data are sociolinguistic interviews from Nyboder, a housing sector in central Copenhagen (Gregersen and Pedersen, 1991). Relating stress to other linguistic parameters is a well-known topic in Danish linguistic research. The relation between synta x and stress on verbs has been described by many scholars, including Otto Jespersen (Jespersen, 1934; Diderichsen, 1946; Rischel, 1983; Hansen and Lund, 1983; Nedergaard Thomsen, 1991). The general consensus is that stress on verbs in many cases depends on the syntactic form of the verb phrase. If the noun phrase has a determiner the verb is stressed; if the noun phrase does not have a determiner the verb is unstressed. This is illustrated by sentences like (1) and (2). 1 (1) Han 'kObte He bought V (2) Han ospiste He ate V

tre liter m~elk. three liters of milk. NP with determiner ost. cheese. NP without determiner

Simple principles for the occurrence of stress cannot be formulated for all kinds of verbs, and certainly not for the epistemic verbs. Epistemic verb phrases can consist of an epistemic verb, an adverb, and a clause expressing a proposition. This is a very typical construction for verb phrases with epistemic verbs in Danish. Sentences like (3), (4) and (5) are quite c o m m o n . (3) Jeg tror I believe V Adverb

nok han er p~i stranden. probably he is on the beach Proposition

1 In this paper, focus is on the overall rhythm of the phrases, not on the exact strength of the individual beats. For that reason, only two degrees of stress are considered in this paper. A verb may simply be with or without prosodic prominence, stressed or unstressed. ' denotes stress, o denotes no stress. The author did not carry out the stress assignments, other researchers did this in an initial prosodic analysis. Stress assignments were not backed by instrumental evidence.

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(4) Jeg I (5) Jeg I

synes aldrig think never mener ikke a m fairly sure not V Adverb

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han er god nok. he is g o o d enough. hun er i S v e n d b o r g . she is in S v e n d b o r g . Proposition

The translations are p u r e l y tentative, the Danish e p i s t e m i c verbs have no equivalent in English. 2 Note that the adverbs do not belong to the m a i n clauses, but to the propositions. The p r o p o s i t i o n in (3) is what the adverb n o k ( p r o b a b l y ) modifies. A p r o p e r translation m i g h t be I b e l i e v e he is p r o b a b l y on the b e a c h . F o l l o w i n g the same principle, the translation o f (5) should be I a m f a i r l y s u r e she is not in S v e n d b o r g . Sentences (3), (4) and (5) m a y be realized with stressed or unstressed epistemic verbs, both p r o s o d i c forms w o u l d sound natural to a native speaker. In sentences like (3), (4) and (5) the speaker uses epistemic verbs to express his e p i s t e m i c a t t i t u d e t o w a r d s the proposition. The p a r a d i g m o f e p i s t e m i c verbs is here n a r r o w e d d o w n to tro, s y n e s and m e n e (believe, t h i n k and m e a n ) . There are other e p i s t e m i c verbs in Danish, but they will not be c o n s i d e r e d in this study. Furthermore, the scope o f sentence types is restricted to sentences with a first person singular subj e c t and an e p i s t e m i c verb in the present tense. W h e n the subject is not a first person singular or the verb is not in the present tense, the e p i s t e m i c verb does not express the s p e a k e r ' s e p i s t e m i c attitude; on the contrary, the speaker uses it to report on a state o f affairs: s o m e b o d y e l s e ' s e p i s t e m i c attitude or his o w n e p i s t e m i c attitude at another point in time. The semantic p e r s p e c t i v e s are quite different; the speaker does not have the e p i s t e m i c attitude, he is m e r e l y talking about it. T h e investigation presented b e l o w attempts to solve the p r o b l e m with the epistemic verbs in Danish. The question is: is r e l e v a n c e theory useful in investigating the principles for use o f stress on e p i s t e m i c v e r b s ? I f not, what kind o f theoretical f r a m e w o r k is n e e d e d ?

2 The Danish epistemic verbs do not translate well. In fact, the meaning of the verb think in English covers the meanings of all three epistemic verbs, tror, synes and mener in Danish. Simon Dik uses the term objective modality for what I call epistemic attitude in this paper (Dik, 1989: 205). In Dik's terms, the verb tror expresses epistemic objective modality. Tror expresses a degree of certainty or probability related to a proposition. The think of I think Bali is an island corresponds to tror. In this paper tror is translated into believe when I need to separate it from other epistemic verbs. Synes in the main clause expresses that the proposition is an ethical or aesthetic judgement on behalf of the speaker himself. This corresponds most closely to what Dik calls deontic objective modality. The think of I think he is a jerk corresponds to synes. In this paper synes is translated into think. Mene is more complex. It can express - like tror - a degree of objective certainty or probability related to a proposition, in fact a higher degree of certainty than tror expresses. While tror denotes uncertainty, mener seems to designate more - though not complete - objective certainty. 1 am fairly sure is a suitable translation. However, mener can also - exactly like synes - express that the proposition is a judgement on behalf of the speaker. Again, mener is stronger than synes, the judgement is more deeply felt by the speaker when he says mener than when he says synes. In this paper mene is translated into mean when the exact meaning of the word is not important.

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The method in the investigation is to formulate a simple hypothesis for the use of stress on epistemic verbs and, when this initial hypothesis proves somewhat inadequate, to formulate two stronger hypotheses incorporating concepts and ideas from studies of language in interaction.

4. The initial hypothesis An initial hypothesis for stress on epistemic verbs is easily formulated: an epistemic verb is realized with stress if the information it expresses presents new information. Stress is generally considered a means of drawing the hearer's attention to certain parts of an utterance (Bolinger, 1986; Jespersen, 1934), so this ought to be a fairly self-evident starting point. Hypothesis 1: If the epistemic verb expresses new information, it is stressed. If the verb expresses given information, it is unstressed.

The distinction between new and given information is far from trivial, therefore a definition of these frequently used and rarely defined terms will be given. The distinction implies a concept of context, so the term context will be defined as well. It should be made clear though, that the approach used is not in accordance with relevance theory. Rather, it is the case that notions of relevance theory are used in order to shed some additional light on notions of given and new information. Sperber and Wilson use the terms foreground and background (Sperber and Wilson, 1986: 209). These terms are certainly not equivalents to new and given; the authors' intention is to emphasize that the notion of foreground and background has a different theoretical status altogether. For this reason, and others (Sperber and Wilson, 1986: 203-204), Sperber and Wilson explicitly reject for their purposes the appropriateness of the terms new and given. Whereas the speakers' ability of differentiating new and given information in utterances is traditionally considered a part of the basic linguistic competence, foregrounding and backgrounding arise as natural consequences of the speakers' intention to optimize relevance. Therefore the distinction between foreground and background is not a part of the basic linguistic machinery; in relevance theory the terms are used merely as descriptive labels (Sperber and Wilson, 1986: 217). A foregrounded element in an utterance has large contextual effects, it contributes directly to the relevance of the utterance. In contrast, a backgrounded element contributes to the relevance of the utterance by lowering the processing effort, it contributes indirectly to relevance. Consider the sentence presented below. He was "running. In this sentence, running is prosodically highlighted by means of stress, this element is foregrounded. According to relevance theory, the speaker communicates that the

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listener should make present a large number of assumptions related to the concept of running in order to obtain relevance. H e and was belong to the background. The listener probably already knows who he refers to, it may be assumed that a certain person has been introduced before the sentence is uttered. The listener should not access a large number of assumptions suggesting who he refers to, then. The words he and was are not suppose to give rise to contextual effects, they simply assure the listener that the communication is still within the same universe of discourse, i.e. that it is related to assumptions already present in the listener's processing context. Therefore, these words serve the purpose of minimizing the listener's processing efforts. It is important to note, as Sperber and Wilson do, that running need not be new information in the discourse. The point is that the word running gives rise to contextual effects, and in order to do so it need not be new information. Nevertheless, it will be demonstrated that notions of relevance theory can be of use in the study of basic linguistic machinery such as the distinction between new and given information. The strength of hypotheses formulated in this framework is a strong argument in favor of such an approach. The idea in this paper is to investigate the usefulness of the notion of processing context in order to find a correlation between new and given information and the use of stress. The hypotheses about stress presented in this paper, then, are not relevance-theoretical, since they do not conform to relevance theory as it is intended. On the contrary, the hypotheses benefit from insights borrowed from relevance theory while being applied to a slightly different research area.

5. The explicit context We need to operate with two concepts of context: an explicit and an implicit context. One is dictated by relevance theory, the other by the general demand for objectivity in linguistic research. There is a general need in linguistic research to operationalize linguistic concepts. Therefore, a definition of an objective concept of context will be given, a context that can be measured directly on the surface of the text, a context that can be operationalized. This context is called the explicit context. An explicit context consists of the themes expressed explicitly over a small number of utterances. Thus, an epistemic attitude is in the explicit context if an epistemic verb is used in one of these utterances. The number of utterances depends on the flow of the talk. If the talk is fluent and the speakers stick to the same subject, it is reasonable to consider rather a large number of utterances. If the talk is abrupt and the subjects change rapidly, it is reasonable to consider a smaller number. In my investigations minimum and maximum explicit context size has been 4 and 8 utterances respectively)

3 An utterance, as the author uses the term, compares roughly to a written sentence. If a speaker keeps the floor for a long period of time, he will produce many utterances.

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Given the definition of the explicit context, defining given and new information in the explicit context is trivial. An epistemic verb expresses given information if that same verb has been used earlier in the explicit context. If the verb has not been used earlier, it expresses new information. The case of contrasting information will be considered below.

6. The implicit context In some ways the explicit context outlined above is not a very satisfying concept. Intuitively, it does not seem convincing that speakers understand utterances by merely considering the actual spoken words. It seems necessary to take into consideration the general mechanisms of the human mind, mechanisms such as association. The mental process of understanding words involves the concepts expressed, and the concepts expressed involve other concepts, associated concepts. This is in general the way the human mind works, linguists and psychologists agree that far. The relevance-theoretical notion of processing context takes into account such an organization of the human mind. Some of Sperber and Wiison's most illuminating and vital achievements lay in this area, in explaining systematically and in great detail the mental contexts used in communication. Thus, in defining new concepts of context for use in empirical investigations, relevance theory seems an obvious and necessary inspiration. It would be interesting to work out a concept of context reflecting the processing contexts involved in the communication. This context is called the implicit context. The theory of relevance dictates a concept of context related not to the text itself, but to the mental processes behind the text. The implicit context, then, consists of the themes or assumptions in the hearer's processing context, the assumptions the hearer needs to construct in order to understand utterances at a given point in the communication. We cannot, of course, in any way know the exact nature or content of speakers' mental processes. What we can do is to stipulate a relation between processing contexts and the text in the interview. On the basis of this stipulation, we will say that an epistemic attitude is in the implicit context if the explicit text implies this epistemic attitude. An example will clarify this point. Consider the stretch of discourse in (6). An informant is trying to account for the period of time when her parents lived in Nyboder, and has difficulties remembering the exact period of time. (6) ja d e t e r sv~ert de m5 have boet der yeah it is difficult they must have been living there fra nogleogfyrre af fra niogfyrre af in the forties from '49 t r o r jeg nok de boede der I believe they lived there

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In the first line the informant says det er svaert, which in Danish is a set phrase meaning something like it is difficult to remember~figure out. The informant explains her difficulties in remembering the exact year, and the modality of they must have and inexactness of in the forties point in the same direction. Difficulties in remembering implies the epistemic attitude expressed by the verb tro (believe). Following the definition above, we will say that the epistemic attitude believing is introduced in the implicit context in the two first lines of (6). Note that no explicit use of an epistemic verb is necessary to introduce an epistemic attitude in the implicit context. Only in the explicit context an explicit use of an epistemic verb is required. The scope of an implicit context cannot be counted in terms of number of utterances. The criterion for measuring the durability of an implicit context must have to do with its relevance to the utterances in the discourse. Thus, the epistemic attitude remains in the implicit context as long as it is relevant for the hearer's understanding of the utterances in the discourse. If the speakers talk about the same subject for a long time, the implicit context will be fairly constant, it will contain the same themes and assumptions for a long time and have a large scope. If subjects change fast, the implicit contexts will change accordingly fast, and the scope of each of the implicit contexts will be rather small. Again, once the implicit context has been defined it is a trivial matter to define given and new information in the context. An epistemic verb expresses given information in the implicit context if the meaning of that same verb has been implied by the preceding utterances already. If the verb has not been implied, it expresses new information in the implicit context. In (6) above, the implicit and explicit contexts for the epistemic verb tro (believe) in the third line differ. The verb expresses given information in the implicit context. The epistemic attitude believing is implied by the preceding text, as explained. In the explicit context, the verb expresses new information. There has been no prior explicit use of the epistemic verb tro (believe).

7. Contrasting information One type of new information deserves special attention. Before turning to the empirical results, a few remarks will be made about contrasting information, information contradicting information given earlier in the context, information that the hearer may already have internalized as present knowledge. Obviously, information that contradicts the present knowledge is extremely salient. It radically changes the hearer's knowledge, and in this respect contrasting information can be seen as new - indeed very new - information. Utterances with epistemic verbs may be in contrast to each other in two different ways, given the grammatical form of the utterances considered in this paper (the form illustrated by (3) to (5)). The utterances presented have two potential foci of contrast: the epistemic verb in the main clause is one focus, the embedded proposition is the other focus. There can then be two types of contrast:

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contrasting propositions contrasting epistemic attitudes A case of contrasting propositions is presented in (7). An informant is explaining the hardship of having to go to school again after years of manual labor. Was it hard reading books again ? the interviewer asks. The answer goes like this: -

-

(7) alts~t jeg synes ikke det var sv~ert you know I think not it was difficult men til geng~eld synes jeg det var sv~ert but on the other hand I think it was difficult pludselig skulle hvad skal man sige all of a sudden to have to how shall I put it v~ere v~ere elev to be be a pupil In (7) the speaker expresses the same epistemic attitude towards two contrasting propositions. The negation ikke (not) belongs to the proposition, not to the main clause, so what the speaker says may be described as I think: reading was not difficult but I think: being a pupil was difficult. The speaker expresses no contrasting epistemic attitudes in (7). The second epistemic verb, synes (think), expresses given information. It cannot be decided whether the first epistemic verb expresses new or given information, more preceding text is necessary in order to make this decision. Hypothesis 1 predicts that synes in the second line in (7) should not have stress, since it expresses given information in the explicit as well as in the implicit context. A case of contrasting epistemic attitudes is presented in (8). An informant is telling the interviewer about the rules for sharing kitchens in Nyboder in the old days. (8) dengang var der vist nok noget med in those days I think you had to man delte k~kken med m e n e r jeg you shared a kitchen with I am fairly sure min mor gjorde hun delte k~kken med naboen my mother did she shared a kitchen with the neighbor The phrase var der vist nok noget med is an idiom, and my translation of it is rather free. It is obvious though, to a native speaker, that the idiom expresses uncertainty, the epistemic attitude believing. Because the speaker does not use an explicit epis-

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temic verb, the e p i s t e m i c attitude believing is introduced only in the implicit context. A s a consequence, the e p i s t e m i c verb mener, which expresses a higher d e g r e e o f certainty, in the s e c o n d line o f (8), expresses contrasting i n f o r m a t i o n in the i m p l i c i t context. T h e i n f o r m a t i o n is n e w b e c a u s e it contradicts the already given information presented b y the idiom. In the e x p l i c i t context, mener e x p r e s s e s new information, but not b y means o f contrast. There has been no prior use o f an e p i s t e m i c verb. H y p o t h e s i s 1 predicts that the verb mener should have stress, according to the explicit as well as the implicit context, but for slightly different reasons.

8. Empirical results of hypothesis 1 W e will n o w turn to the e m p i r i c a l facts. The relation b e t w e e n the predictions o f stress a c c o r d i n g to hypothesis 1 and the actual occurrence o f stress in the data, is s h o w n in Tables 1 and 2. 4 T a b l e 1 shows the results in the explicit context. The c o l u m n s show which k i n d o f information the e p i s t e m i c verbs present. In the b o t t o m o f the table the sums are calculated: 36 verbs present n e w information, 14 verbs present given information.

Table 1 Hypothesis 1, explicit context Count column%

New information

Observed stress: o

6

36 72%

Row total 11 22%

17%

Observed stress: ' Column total

Given information

9 64%

39 78%

14 28%

50 100%

Significance: 14% T h e rows show the stress observed. O f the 50 e p i s t e m i c verbs in the data 11 are realized without stress, 39 are r e a l i z e d with stress. The neutral distribution o f stress is thus 78% stressed verbs versus 22% unstressed verbs.

4 All crosstabulations presented have been computed by the SPSS PC+I.0 program. The so-called Yates correction - a correction applied to the significance levels when the observed or the expected number of observations in one or more cells is less than five - has been applied. See Norusis (1986) for details.

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Hypothesis 1 predicts that verbs presenting new information should have stress. If the hypothesis is any good, the distribution of stress in the column for verbs presenting new information should differ from the neutral distribution. The percentage of stressed verbs should be higher than 78%. The verbs expressing given information should follow the same pattern, more than 22% should be unstressed. These cells are shaded. The table shows that hypothesis 1 seems to have something to say about reality. The distribution of stress differs from the neutral in the expected way: 83% percent of the verbs presenting new information are stressed, 36% of the verbs expressing given information are unstressed. However, the distribution is in fact not far from the neutral and it is not a very impressive result, and not a very significant one either. The probability that the deviation from the neutral distribution has come about by pure chance is intolerably high, as much as 14%. There is no reliable result at all when the explicit context is used. Table 2 shows the results in the implicit context. The deviation from neutral distribution is a bit larger than in the explicit context: 92% of the verbs presenting new information are stressed. The percentage of unstressed verbs expressing given information has not changed. The result is significant, below the 5% limit. Table 2 Hypothesis 1, implicit context Count column%

New information

Given information

11 22%

Observed stress: o Observed stress: ' Column total

Row total

25 50%

16 64%

39 78%

25 50%

50 100%

Significance: 2% The implicit context seems to be a useful tool. It provides a significant hypothesis about stress on epistemic verbs. The idea of applying relevance theory to the notion of new and given information proves profitable. Relevance theory in itself seems confirmed by this result: the concept of implicit context has been formulated on relevance-theoretical grounds. It is obvious though, that a lot of the epistemic verbs in the data have not been accounted for. As much as 64% of the verbs expressing given information are stressed. Hypothesis 1 cannot explain this. So far only a very incomplete description of stress on epistemic verbs in the data has been given. Therefore, the hypothesis should be improved.

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9. Question-reply sequences The theory of relevance has its main focus inside the heads of the communicators. The mental processes described are going on inside the head of the hearer. Consequently, communication is explained more as an intrapersonal affair than as an interpersonal affair. My short summary of relevance theory in the beginning of this paper exemplifies this view. The question answered by relevance theory seems to be how does the receiver intra-act when confronted with this utterance ? rather than how do the communicators interact ? It seems to me the latter question is what communication theory really is about. Hypothesis 1 shares this weakness. It should be observed that this is not due to relevance theory since hypothesis 1 was not formulated on relevance-theoretical grounds. The hypothesis fails to recognize that the data are produced by more than one speaker, and it is in this respect following a Chomskyan point of view. It accounts for information structures in a stream of text produced by the talk itself, so to speak. The nature of the data should naturally be taken into account. Sociolinguistic interviews often serve a specific purpose: the interviewer's job is to inspire the informant to give a certain kind of performance, tell stories in the vernacular or whatever. The interactional roles reflect this purpose, the interviewer has to ask questions, the informant has to answer. It is evident that sequences of questions and answers occur quite frequently and play quite a significant role in sociolinguistic interviews, and this organization of talk is a sensible point of departure for improving the initial hypothesis about stress on epistemic verbs. First, let us consider some sequences of questions and answers. A hypothetical example is presented in (9), a question and two possible answers. (9) Interviewer: Informant: Informant:

T r o r du han er syg? do you think he is ill? Jeg t r o r altid han er syg. I think he is always ill Nej, jeg t r o t faktisk ikke han er syg. no, in fact I think he is not ill

The interviewer introduces an epistemic attitude by using an epistemic verb, and the informant repeats the verb expressing the same epistemic attitude in his answer. At first sight, the answers are somewhat surprising when analyzed in terms of relevance theory. Sperber and Wilson (1986: 256) describe questions as "communicating that there is some completion of the thought interpreted by P into a fully propositional thought which would be relevant if true" where P is a "less-than-propositional logical form of the utterance".

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Answering a question, then, is merely a matter of supplying the relevant data not uncovered by the utterance, i.e. the question, itself. Since the not already expressed facts are what the interviewer is asking for, there is no apparent reason for an informant to repeat parts of the question, as in (9)-according to relevance theory. What needs to be found in order to maintain a consistent relevance-theoretical point of view, are reasons for repeating seemingly redundant information. Such reasons may be found when the general rules of face-to-face communication are taken into account. The type of answer given in (9) is by no means rare in the data, repeating parts of the question seems to be a norm, at least for some speakers in some passages. A plausible explanation of this phenomenon may be formulated in terms of face-work (Goffman, 1972). The interviewer does a lot of face-work in order to give the impression that he is a competent interviewer. He responds very willingly to the informants' utterances and asks a lot of questions, displaying an enthusiastic attitude towards any topic that might come up. The informant plays his part with equal enthusiasm. He does his best to give the impression that he is answering truthfully, precisely, and with suitable consideration of the matter. This impression is controlled by the informant by many means: prosody and gesture are undoubtedly important devices for signalling enthusiasm, but of course verbal performance is a part of the picture too. Repeating parts of a question is a useful device for the informant in the interviewing ritual. By repeating parts of questions he gives precisely the impression mentioned above, the impression of answering exactly along the lines laid out by the question. Repeating parts of the question thus leads to an improved face. Repeating an epistemic verb may even have a higher rank as a face-improving device than repeating other kinds of words. When the informants repeat epistemic verbs they signal that they have in fact entered the state of mind the interviewer directed the question towards. What more can you do in terms of cooperating and being a good informant? Answering within the paradigm the interviewer has used in the question, is a similar face-improving strategy. Instead of repeating an epistemic verb in the answer, the informant may use another epistemic verb, and still give the impression of answering along the lines laid out by the question. For these reasons it is highly predictable that the informants repeat epistemic verbs that are parts of questions. Given the genre, this is the appropriate linguistic behavior. It is also predictable that the informants answer within the paradigm of epistemic verbs, when epistemic attitudes have been mentioned in the question. Furthermore, it is predictable that the epistemic verb is realized with stress; the purpose of the repetition or the use of the same paradigm is to emphasize the informant's face-work. This social signalling is important and it is therefore prosodically highlighted. The second hypothesis about stress on epistemic verbs, a hypothesis somewhat in disagreement with relevance theory, can now be formulated:

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Hypothesis 2:

Question-reply sequences: if the interviewer is asking about epistemic attitudes, epistemic verbs in the answer are stressed. Monologues: if the epistemic verb expresses new information, it is stressed. If the verb expresses given information, it is unstressed. Again we differentiate between the explicit and the implicit context. The interviewer may present an epistemic attitude without using an epistemic verb, as in il0): (10) Skal man s/t ud og rydde Christiania? should Christiania then be torn down? The interviewer is expressing an epistemic attitude in the implicit context. He is asking the informant whether he thinks Christiania, an autonomous part of Copenhagen, ought to be demolished. The question is directed towards the informant's epistemic attitude. If the interviewer had used an epistemic verb, the question would have been directed towards epistemic attitudes in the explicit context also. In (10) no epistemic verb occurs, and therefore epistemic attitudes are referred to only in the implicit context. When the informant answers the question expressing his epistemic attitude, he is showing his skill as a cooperating participant in the interview, giving face to himself as well as to the interviewer. If the informant uses an epistemic verb, the second hypothesis about stress on epistemic verbs predicts that the verb should be stressed, as in (11). (11) Interviewer: Skal man s/i ud og rydde Christiania? should Christiania then be torn down? Informant: Alts~ jeg 'synes ikke at man b0r gore det well, I don't think it should be done The answer presented in (11) may certainly be realized with an unstressed verb, this is quite acceptable and natural in Danish. Hypothesis 2 predicts stress not because this is the only natural possibility, but because it is the most polite and face-saving, and because it is attention-signalling with respect to the question-reply rituals in the interview. Since the genre imposes polite behavior on the participants, polite prosodical designs are to be expected. In less polite and formalized speech genres the prosody might be different.

10. Empirical results of hypothesis 2 Tables 3 and 4 show the empirical results related to hypothesis 2 about stress on epistemic verbs. Table 3 shows the results in the explicit context.

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Table 3 Hypothesis 2, explicit context

Count column%

New information

Given information

Row total

Questionreply Observed stress: o

7 17%

Observed stress: ' Column total

41 82%

t/i/1/®

11 22%

5 56%

39 78%

9 18%

50 100%

Significance: 9%

As before, the neutral distribution of stressed versus unstressed verbs is 78% versus 22%. This can be seen at the extreme right of the table, where sums of observed stress are calculated. In the first column the number of verbs expressing new information or answering a question about epistemic attitudes are listed. These verbs should be stressed, according to hypothesis 2. In the second column the number of verbs expressing given information are listed. These verbs should be unstressed. The distribution of verbs in the two columns differ from the neutral distribution in the way predicted by hypothesis 2. There are more stressed verbs expressing new information or answering a question about epistemic attitudes than could be expected if the distribution was neutral - 83% of the verbs are stressed. There are also more unstressed verbs expressing given information than expected if the distribution was neutral. Neutral distribution is 22% unstressed verbs, and as much as 44% of the verbs expressing given information are unstressed. This result is better than the one shown in Table 1 where only 36% of the verbs expressing given information was unstressed. Compared to Table 1, Table 3 shows a better result altogether, but the level of significance is still far too high: 9%. So again, there is no reliable result in the explicit context. Table 4 shows the results for hypothesis 2 in the implicit context. The level of significance is no problem, it is below the 1% limit. The results are good, too: 91% of the verbs expressing new information or answering a question about epistemic attitudes are stressed, 47% of the verbs expressing given information are unstressed. Table 4 shows a reliable result, and comparing this table and Table 2, it is obvious that hypothesis 2 is a stronger hypothesis than hypothesis 1. The percentages of stressed verbs are almost identical in the columns where stressed verbs are expected: 92% stressed verbs in Table 2 and 91% in Table 4. But the percentages differ quite

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Table 4 Hypothesis 2, implicit context Count column%

information Question

Observed stress: o Observed stress: ' Column total

Given information

New

t

total 11 22%

9% iliNSl'

Row

"'

33 66%

'

t'

9

39 78%

17 34%

50 100%

Significance: 0.3% a lot when it comes to the columns where unstressed verbs are expected: 36% unstressed verbs in Table 2 and 47% in Table 4. The number of cases not conforming to the hypothesis is another measure of the strength of a hypothesis. The verbs conforming to the hypothesis are found in the shaded cells in the tables. The number of cases not conforming to hypothesis 1 in Table 2 is 18 - 2 verbs expressing new information are unstressed, 16 verbs expressing given information are stressed. The number of cases not conforming to hypothesis 2 in Table 4 is only 1 2 : 3 verbs expressing new information or answering a question about epistemic attitudes are unstressed, and 9 verbs expressing given information are stressed. The conclusion is that hypothesis 2 is stronger than hypothesis 1. Again, relevance theory seems confirmed. Relevance theory is confirmed in that the implicit context still seems to be the only practical concept of context. The results in the explicit context are simply not valid, neither for hypothesis 1 nor for hypothesis 2. It is very important to observe though, that the second hypothesis incorporates inspirations from studies of language in ritual interaction. Sociologically motivated concepts such as face-work are taken into account. The scope of the investigation is thereby somewhat changed. Claiming that face-work should be taken into account is tantamount to presuming that certain culture-specific assumptions should always be present to the speakers: for instance assumptions regarding face-work and rituals of communication. The usefulness of a universal theory of relevance seems challenged, since culture-specific presumptions about processing contexts are needed in order to provide an accurate hypothesis about stress assignment.

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11. Repetitions The theory of relevance predicts the presence of certain kinds of linguistic behavior and the absence of other kinds. If one wanted to put the theory of relevance to a strong test, one might try to find some type of linguistic behavior which was not predicted. Trying to figure out what kind of behavior is not predicted to occur is a straightforward matter. According to relevance theory man generally has the intention of being optimally relevant when he communicates (Sperber and Wilson, 1986: 159). So, if linguistic behavior not aiming at optimal relevance can be pointed out, behavior not predicted by relevance theory is found. Utterances not designed to have optimal relevance have certain properties: either they have no contextual effect, or their contextual effect is not obtained by the simplest means available, i.e. in the most accessible context. What needs to be found, then, in order to provide non-predicted behavior, are utterances with these properties, and candidates are in fact not hard to find in the sociolinguistic interviews. Repetitions are possible candidates. They may be considered to have some of the properties mentioned, but of course this is not valid for just any kind of repetition. One may repeat a word to emphasize it or to intensify its meaning. This is a quite normal linguistic means of expression, highly frequent in for instance some Indonesian languages, and repetitions of this kind are quite predictable in a relevance-theoretical framework. But consider a passage like (12). (12) Informant 2 hvad med Tytteb~er-Maja? what about Tytteb~er-Maja? Informant 1 nej fordi hun er hun er ikke f~dt her no because she is not born here Informant 2 n[i oh Informant 1 det var jo kun hendes mand det fik vi at vide only her husband was born here we were told i mandags det har far fortalt mig last Monday father told me jeg troede ogsd hun var fOdt her nemlig hun I thought she was born here, too, she Interviewer Tytteb~er-Maja? Tytteb~er-Maja? Informant 1 ja det var hende derovre da hendes mand var d~d hun havde arvet lejligheden eller man f ~ lejligheden ngtr man yes that was her over there, when her husband died she inherited the flat or you get the flat when you Informant 2 nhr manden dCr s/~ f~r du lov at beholde s/~ bliver de bare flyttet ned i noget mindre ikke when the husband dies you are allowed to keep, then they are moved to something smaller you know

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Informant 1 s~ f ~ de en halvandenv~erelses then they get one and a half rooms Interviewer ja yes Informant 1 og det har hun fhet and that is what she got Interviewer ja yes Informant 1 jeg troede faktisk ogsd hun var fOdt her men d e t e r hun ikke I actually thought she was born here, too, but she is not Informant 2 men hende hun ved alt om Nyboder but she knows all about Nyboder Informant 1 ja det er jo derfor hun hedder Tytteb~er-Maja ... yes that is why she is called Tytteb~er-Maja ... The informants and the interviewer are discussing who can and who cannot be used as an informant in the sociolinguistic investigation. A person called Tytteb~er-Maja - the name of a very gossip-loving character from a novel by the Swedish author Astrid Lindgreen - is suggested. However, to qualify as an informant you have to be born in the area investigated, in Nyboder, and Tytteb~er-Maja is not, as informant 1 points out. Three different themes are introduced in (12). At the beginning Tyttebaer-Maja's place of birth is discussed. In the middle the theme is the size of apartment Tytteb~erMaja got when her husband died. At the end of (12) it is explained why this person is called Tytteb~er-Maja: she knows all about Nyboder and loves gossip. The interesting and characteristic thing about (12) is (a) that informant 1 repeats an utterance - the utterance and the repetition are italicized in the text - and (b) that a new theme is introduced immediately after the repetition. Informant 2 takes over the floor and starts talking about a new theme. From a very strict relevance-theoretical point of view, the repetition must have very little contextual effect, if taken literally. The addressees' processing contexts cannot have changed much between the first and second mention of the utterance: very little time has passed and the content of the conversation has been rather stable. The informants have been talking about Tytteb~er-Maja all the time, even though different themes concerning Tytteb~er-Maja have been introduced. The assumptions brought into the listeners' processing contexts by the first mention of the repeated utterance are probably still there. It can safely be assumed that the speaker is well aware that her utterance repeats an assumption present in the addressees' minds already. 5 And it can safely be assumed too, that the speaker has the intention of doing just that.

This kind of repetition is not what Sperber and Wilson call reminders (Sperber and Wilson, 1986: 14344). The addressees are not reminded of anything, they cannot have forgotten an utterance uttered such a short while ago.

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One word separates the first mention from the repetition. In the repetition the word faktisk, i.e. actually, occurs. It does not seem profitable however, to try to extract any relevant new information from the w o r d f a k t i s k alone. In fact, it does not seem profitable to try to extract information from the recurring utterance at all, not if it is taken literally, i.e. not if it is interpreted as a statement about the informant's thoughts about Tytteb~er-Maja's place of birth. The recurring utterance does not express what the informant thought about anything; it is about the organization of themes in the communication and about turntaking: repetitions of this sort may be understood as rhetorical devices. Repetitions are means of communicating that a local theme in the communication may be abandoned or closed. The pattern is known from many genres, formal as well as informal. In radio spots the reporters often sum up by repeating one or two important points just before turning to other matters or before leaving the air to someone else. In educational genres the same mechanism is often used: an important central statement is repeated before the next theme is opened. In the present author's opinion the mechanism is motivated by form. Repeating an utterance gives the discourse a circular form: the thematic focus is returning to a place in discourse that has been visited before. The circular form is widely applied and occurs in many speech genres. It is known from other parts of cognition, too, from music for instance. Greimas' structural model for the thematic movements in Russian folk-tales also describes a movement returning to its offspring, a circular movement. Repeating an utterance, then, communicates the completion of a theme, by completing explicitly a circular form. In (12) above, informant 2 clearly interprets the repetition as a signal to close the present theme and open a new one. She starts talking about another of Tytteb~erMaja's qualities: her knowledge of the Nyboder area. She immediately opens a new thematic area. We certainly cannot say that repetitions do not convey information at all. The informant's will to leave a theme and perhaps even to let someone else have the floor is important knowledge - in the sociolinguistic interview the other participants have to respond correctly to it, if the interview is to be carried out in a successful way. In fact, the project of finding irrelevant utterances in authentic communication is admittedly doomed from the very start, since the relevance of just about any utterance can probably be successfully stipulated. The crucial point is: which explanatory strategies must be followed in order to explain the relevance stipulated? Regarding relevance theory, the puzzling thing about rhetorical repetitions is: if this is all the informant wants to say, why then, is it done in such a complicated way? To understand the meaning of the repetition the addressee has to remember having heard the repeated utterance before, and this requires some cognitive effort. To understand the repetition he also has to apply some knowledge about language rituals: when somebody repeats something it is because they want to shift theme. The speaker might simply have said: s o m e o n e else can p i c k a theme n o w or I ' m done or let's talk about something else. Such utterances could surely be processed by the addressee much more easily, no rules about language rituals would be needed in

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the processing context, and the addressees would not have to keep track of whether the utterance repeated an earlier utterance. From a relevance-theoretical point of view, repetitions of the rhetorical sort are puzzling; they do not contradict the principle of optimal relevance, but they certainly do not follow from it either. From a sociological point of view, it is predictable that the alternatives to repetitions listed above cannot be applied. It is a general norm in conversation that as long as the communication is getting along fine, metatalk is not applied. Therefore the speaker cannot say let's talk about something else. Such an utterance would intimidate the conversational ritual by implying that the flow of themes and utterances does not come naturally and spontaneously. And the generally accepted and applied norm is that the flow of themes and utterances should come naturally and spontaneously, as should any kind of behavior. A natural, unstrained flow of themes and utterances is in general the mark of a well-functioning conversation conducted by able communicators. So surely, the informants have good reason to control the organization of the talk by implicit means, such as repetitions. The bottom line is that communicative norms may determine utterance designs that do not follow from principles of optimal relevance in a straightforward manner. The notion of rhetorical repetitions can easily be added to the hypothesis of stress on epistemic verbs. The recurring utterance simply repeats the stress of the utterance that is repeated. Therefore, the third hypothesis of stress on epistemic verbs can be formulated as follows: Hypothesis 3:

Repetitions: the stress on the epistemic verb in the recurring utterance is like the stress in the repeated utterance. Question-reply sequences: if the interviewer is asking about epistemic attitudes, epistemic verbs in the answer are stressed. Monologues: if the epistemic verb expresses new information, it is stressed. If the verb expresses given information, it is unstressed. The hypothesis is not meant to cover all possible cases of repetitions. As explained above, the repetition in (12) is followed by a thematic shift and a shift of speakers; someone else starts talking about something else after the repeated utterance. The first clause in hypothesis 3 is designed to predict stress in this kind of repetitions: repetitions with subsequent shifts of theme.

12. Empirical results of hypothesis 3 Tables 5 and 6 show the empirical results related to hypothesis 3 about stress on epistemic verbs. Tables 5 and 6 shows the results in the explicit context. They follow the same principles as Tables 1 to 4, so they will not be discussed in great detail.

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Table 5 Hypothesis 3, explicit context

Count column%

Observed stress: o

New

information Questionreply Repetitions

i °i

7 16%

Observed stress: ' Column total

Given information Repetitions

1

Row

total

11 22%

20%

39 78%

45 90%

5 10%

50 100%

New

Given information

Row

Significance: 0.2%

Table 6 Hypothesis 3, implicit context Count column%

Observed stress: o

information Questionreply Repetitions

Column total

11 22%

3 8%

Observed stress: ' 37 74%

total

38%

39 78%

13 26%

50 100%

Significance: 0.02% The general tendency is that hypothesis 3 predicts stress with greater accuracy than h y p o t h e s e s 1 and 2. The c o v e r a g e has i m p r o v e d too, the o b s e r v e d stress is n o w predicted in 42 o f the 50 observations. A n d something e x t r e m e l y interesting has h a p p e n e d : the significance o f the results in the explicit context is b e l o w 1%. The results in the explicit context are valid, and, equally important, the explicit context now p r o v i d e s the most accurate prediction o f stress on e p i s t e m i c verbs. 80% o f the unstressed verbs are p r e d i c t a b l y unstressed. In the implicit context only 62% o f the unstressed verbs are p r e d i c t a b l y unstressed.

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The accuracy in predicting stressed verbs is slightly better in the implicit context: 92% of the stressed verbs are predictably stressed. In the explicit context 84% of the stressed verbs are predictably stressed. But the two contexts are almost equally successful in predicting stressed verbs. The real difference between the explicit and the implicit context lies in predicting unstressed verbs, and the explicit context is by far the most successful. Relevance theory is in fact not at all challenged by this result, it is not even addressed. The most successful hypothesis, hypothesis 3, incorporates the use of a rhetorical device that does not follow from principles of relevance. Since it does not contradict the principles of relevance either, it cannot be concluded that relevance theory is in any way falsified by the result. But the result suggests that we need to observe linguistic behavior not predicted by relevance theory in order to provide accurate hypotheses about authentic language. Furthermore, the notion of implicit context, which was formulated along the lines of relevance theory, does not seem necessary. In the case of hypothesis 3, the study of the surface of the text is more powerful than the study of processing contexts. From an objectivist point of view, this is a very reassuring result. Determining the processing context will always have an air of retrospective guesswork about it, and for this reason the usefulness of such a notion is questionable in a strictly objective framework.

13. Concluding remarks The method used in this paper deserves special attention, since it has consequences for the generality of the results obtained. The method has been the following: First, stress assignments are carried out. Then an initial hypothesis is formulated and tested on a corpus of natural speech. The results are not satisfying, and a second hypothesis is formulated. The second hypothesis is then tested o n the s a m e c o r p u s . The results are still not satisfying, so a third and final hypothesis is formulated, and, again, tested o n the s a m e c o r p u s . This is an a d h o c method, and therefore this study fails to prove the generality of its conclusions. The correct method in order to obtain generality is to test new hypotheses on new corpora. Because of lack of resources, such tests have not been carried out. This, however, does not imply that the results are useless, far from it. It remains a fact that the final hypothesis provides the best description of the use of stress in the specific corpus used. What remains to be proved is that the final hypothesis is valid for other corpora as well. Repetition as a rhetorical device is in the author's opinion a highly frequent phenomenon in several speech genres, and therefore his guess is that the scope of the third hypothesis is not at all limited to the present corpus. It also remains a fact that linguistic behavior not predicted by the principle of optimal relevance can be found in the corpus. The results presented in Tables 1 to 6 show that a certain path must be followed in order to provide an adequate hypothesis about stress on epistemic verbs. In short,

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it seems necessary to enter the scope of sociology. The movement from hypothesis 1 to hypothesis 3 is a movement towards studying interactional behavior in a sociopragmatic framework. Two interactional mechanisms are considered in hypotheses 2 and 3, the repeating of epistemic attitudes in question-answer sequences and the repeating of an utterance at the end of a turn. Culture-specific mechanisms such as these are not considered in Sperber and Wilson (1986). And yet they must be included in the hypothesis if it is to be adequate. Sociopragmatics and sociology in general have more to say about these mechanisms. Particularly the notion of face-work seems useful. An informant repeats an epistemic utterance from a question because it improves his face - he implicitly presents himself as a very competent participant in the interview. Repeating utterances to end a theme has a similar function. By repeating an utterance the informant gives her contribution a very clear and perceivable structure. The attribution becomes well-formed and the informant improves her face by demonstrating her ability to produce such well-formed messages, and thereby also her ability to fit so well into her role in the interview. She masters the ritual of the interview. Unquestionably, the informants make use of their more or less conscious knowledge of social norms in their face-work. And the norms are specific to the informants' culture. The prototype of a good participant in an interview is probably not the same for an Arab and an inhabitant of the Nyboder area in Copenhagen. Signals for turn-shifting are certainly different from culture to culture, as has been demonstrated by Gumperz and Tannen (1979). Thus, the investigation presented is culturespecific. The movement from hypotheses 1 to 3 is also a movement from a universal scope to a culture-specific scope. Relevance theory is, as it is presented in Sperber and Wilson (1986), meant to be universal. The ideal is to outline a universal pragmatic rule for communication. The investigation presented here suggests that the specific culture of the informants must be considered - even in studies of low level features of language, such as stress on verbs. If the culture of the informants is not considered, adequate hypotheses about their language use simply cannot be formulated. The purpose of relevance theory is in fact to formulate the system of language on a pragmatic level, la langue of pragmatics to use a Saussurian term. In this respect, the starting point of relevance theory is very classical. A super-maxim accounting for all human communicative behavior is presented. Behind universal concepts such as langue, lies the idea of universal structures in language, universal structures that every single language incarnates. The actual language, parole, is derivable from the universal structure, langue; the relationship between the two is almost causal. In phonetics the concepts of langue and parole are meaningful, especially since phonetics traditionally describes language by means of a limited set of quite welldefined variables, the phonemes. Langue can then be described by traditional phonetics as a set of mathematical rules that (a) describe the internal system of the phonemes in a given language and (b) predict the development over time from one system to another.

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So, f o l l o w i n g the tradition, this is the description a linguistic f r a m e w o r k must provide, if the f r a m e w o r k deals with s u p e r - m a x i m s with a universal scope. The results a b o v e suggest that p r a g m a t i c s cannot p r o v i d e such a set o f m a t h e m a t i c a l rules. The reason is to be found in the focus o f pragmatics. A part o f the focus o f pragmatics is the relation b e t w e e n co-texts, the non-linguistic situational contexts, and the texts produced. W h a t p r a g m a t i c s w o u l d have to do in order to follow the Saussurian tradition is to formulate universal rules for the relationship b e t w e e n something h i g h l y culture-specific, n a m e l y the co-text, and the l a n g u a g e used. Perhaps such rules can in fact be given with a universal scope, and perhaps relevance theory offers such rules. W h e n it c o m e s to describing authentic speech, these rules are not contradicted, but do not seem adequate either. Culture has to be taken into account. A co-text cannot be d e s c r i b e d b y m e a n s o f a w e l l - d e f i n e d set o f universal variables, like p h o n e m e s can. T h e co-text is always specific, specific for just this point in history, for just this culture, for just these people. A n d this is a p r o b l e m , and will r e m a i n a p r o b l e m , to a n y o n e attempting to use universal p r a g m a t i c rules for describing actual h u m a n c o m m u n i c a t i o n .

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