Davis Hayley G. - Words - an Integrational Approach

WORDS

An Integrational Approach

WORDS

An Integrational Approach

Hayley G. Davis

This edition published 2011 by Routledge

Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group
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Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group
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First Published in 2001
by Curzon Press
Richmond, Surrey

2001 Hayley G. Davis

Typeset in Times by LaserScript Ltd, Mitcham, Surrey

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ISBN 070071376X

To Mum and Dad

Contents

Preface

This book coincides with the establishment of The International Association for the Integrational Study of Language and Communication (IAISLC), which was founded in 1998 for the purpose of promoting an integrational approach to the study of language and communication. During July 1998 eight of us Daniel Davis, Roy Harris, Chris Hutton, Nigel Love, Talbot Taylor, Michael Toolan, George Wolf and myself accompanied by partners and offspring, descended upon the French town of Chablis in order to discuss the setting up of an integrationist association. We are all, in various ways, committed to reorienting the study of language by taking into serious consideration the perspective on linguistic matters taken by lay speakers themselves. We all feel, to various degrees, that linguistics is in need of such a reorientation as a response to the now inescapable conclusion that traditional linguistic theory, with its focus on revealing the facts of language in general cannot handle the necessary indeterminacy of what is said and understood. Integrationists insist that in order to understand language we must consider how it is actually used and understood by individual language users.

In order to show how this approach is viable, I have focused on the uses to which English speakers on the one hand, and linguistic theorists on the other, put the word word. This type of analysis also serves as an example of the more general contrast between how an average person and how a professional linguist treats metalinguistic remarks. To investigate the views of lay speakers I have employed an ask-the-speaker methodology, using fieldwork and interview techniques. This study is the first attempt to make such an analysis and to draw the relevant theoretical conclusions concerning the status of the linguistic units in question.

looks at the influence of literacy on both professional linguists and laypeoples metalinguistic judgements.

I thank all those who agreed to be my informants. Your names have been changed but Im sure that you will recognise yourselves. I should also like to thank Ron, the landlord of the Happy Man, who allowed me to interview some of his drinkers.

I would also like to thank the members of IAISLC named above who have, in the past, commented on parts, or in the cases of Roy Harris, Nigel Love, Talbot Taylor and Michael Toolan, on the whole of this work. A special thanks goes to Roy Harris, without whom this book, which began its life as a D. Phil. thesis, would never have been realized. I am also grateful to Chris Wells for his helpful comments on early drafts of this work. My love and appreciation also extends to Chris Baldick and Bethany for everything.

I also thank my other children Joshua, Zoe and Ella for their patience: perhaps they will read this one day and understand why I was asking them such silly questions.

Abbreviations

1 Orientation: The Word of Linguistic Theory

The main themes and objectives of this book are to reorient the study of language by taking into serious consideration the perspective on linguistic matters taken by lay speakers themselves. The incorporation of such a folk theoretical methodology would bring linguistics into line with the trend in related social science disciplines (e.g. psychology, anthropology, and sociology) to assign a central methodological importance to the irreducibly interpreted and negotiated character of human behaviour and interactional events. Linguistics, in particular, is in need of such a reorientation as a response to the now inescapable conclusion that traditional linguistic theory, with its focus on revealing the facts of language in general cannot handle the necessary indeterminacy of what is said and understood. Furthermore, incorporating a folk-theoretical approach, it will be argued, is a necessary amplification of language study since it is by the expression of their own reflexive understandings that lay speakers are able to impose regularities and constraints upon language use: regularities and constraints which cannot therefore be explained without reference to those understandings.

This proposed reorientation, involving an ever shifting perspective, therefore demands that we reconceive how we approach metalinguistic and metacommunicative issues, since language, word and meaning etc. are not super-concepts pre-existing their ordinary uses by ordinary speakers (Wittgenstein 1951).

Since the concept of the word is central both to linguistic theory and to the vocabulary of a native English speaker, the , an ask-the-speaker methodology is employed, using fieldwork and interview techniques. This study is the first attempt to make such an analysis and to draw the relevant theoretical conclusions concerning the status of the linguistic units in question.

The Word of Linguistic Theory

The questions what is a word?, or how are we to define a word? have, in the past been a matter of serious concern to many linguistic theorists. However, such concerns rarely, if at all, feature in the talk of ordinary people. Even children could sensibly be expected to define and distinguish between sentences and clauses at school, but would rarely find themselves in situations appropriate to answering such metalinguistic questions as what is a word?, or can you define a word?. In short, ordinary speakers who are familiar with the concept word need to enquire into its uses or definitions only if playing a game with rigid (non-negotiable) rules like Scrabble (em is a word its in Websters New World Dictionary, defined as the thirteenth letter of the alphabet) or performing an activity such as a word-count for an assessed essay (do we count hyphenated words such as non-literary as one word or two?). This is why ordinary speakers might well be baffled if they knew some of the activities linguists got up to: defining a word in order to contribute to the science of language.