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Pragmatics -263

4:2.239
International
Prasmatiqs
Association

HOW TO DO GOOD THINGS WITH WORDS:


A SOCIAL PRAGMATICS FOR SURVIVAL1

Adapted versionof a plenarylecturedelivered


during the 4th InternationalPragmaticsConference
(Kobe, Japan)on July 30, 1993

Jacob L. Mey

0. Introduction:Pragmatics in the nineties

The British novelistMargaret Drabble describesin one of her books how the chief
character, following her husband'sneed to spenda year away from home for reasons
of work, decidesto pick up the family and move with him. The year spent in Hereford
turnsout to be a year'in between',in which the protagonists go through a number of
theatricalanticsand frantic affairs on and off stage,for in the end to find themselves
wherethey started off: truly a 'Garrick Year' (Drabble 1966).2
In the samevein, 1993could be calleda'Garrick Year' for pragmatics,a year
in betweenyears, in which the actors go about their usual, more or less trantic,
business,without reflectingtoo much on the present,but with a great deal of concern
for the past and the future.
As to the past, we have seen some showsbeing put on the road; others are
supposedto follow in the near or more distant future (mentioning a few buzz-words
suchas'Handbook'and 'Encyclopedia'willprobablysufficefor most readers);it is still
tooearlvto sayanythingabout the successof all theseventures,but they certainlyhave
resulted(as in Drabble's book) in a number of heart-breakingscenesand heary
frustrationson the part of the actorsand would-beactorsinvolvedin their production.
As to the fitture, one could point to the fact that more and more workers in
pragmatics are beginningto realizethat pragmaticsand humansurvivalhave something
to do with each other; as example,compare the growing interest in problems of
minorities(not only linguisticallvdetermined)and the dangersthat threaten many
languages spokenby peopleon their way to extinction.The dangersthemselvesare of

I I want to thank an anonymous referee o[ Pragmatic.rfor his/hcr many useful hints, critical
remarks,and corrections (even the present, new title was one of this referee'ssuggestions;the original
'Pragmatics in the Nineties: Topics, Trends, Perspectives").
title of the talk was

2 The title alludes to the actor and playwright David Garrick (I716-1779), founder of the famous
Garrick Theatre in London and one of the sreat histrionic talcnts of all times.
244 Jacob L. Mq,

different kinds; among them, one might want to single out the phenomenon of
'linguicide',as definedby Phillipsonand Skutnabb-Kangas in a number of publications
(most recently 1994);I will come back to theseissuesbelow,section3.
But also in other respects,1993 is typicallyan 'in befween' year. If one is
interestedin, and lendscredenceto, datesas representative of trendsand happenings,
here are sometypicallandmarks(chosenratherarbitrarilyamongmany possibleones):
The year before this, in 1992,it was 30 yearssincepragmaticswas born, so to
say, out of the posthumousbrain of John L. Austin: How to Do Things With Words
appearedon the scenein 1962.
The year 1993itself celebratesthe tenth anniversaryof the publicationof two
major treatises on pragmatics, Leech's Principlesof Pragmatics and Levinson's
Pragmutic.s. Both works have sincecome to be recognizedas classics,even if they are
notoriouslydifficult to use as texts;especiallythe latter is more of a comprehensive
handbookthan a textbookin the usualmeaningof the term: a text to be used as the
rrainstayof an introductr)rycoursein pragmatics.(Horn, writing about Levinsonin
1988,thinks otherwise;for a differentview,cf. my own (1986)reviewof both books).3
F-inally,next year, in 1994, we will be able to celebrate the twenty-fifth
anniversaryof Austin's 'secondcclming',one could say,at the hands of John Searle,
whose SpeecltActs, thai other classicof pragmatics,first saw the light of day in 1969.
One of the thingsthat happenin Drabble's'Garrick Year' is that Emma, the
heroine,finds herself in a new situationwith which she has some ditficulty to cope.
When I was asked,in early 1993,to deliver the plenary lecture (on which the present
article is based)at that year'sInternationalPragmaticsConference,I felt a bit like an
elderlyunclewho is supposedto tell the youngercrowdwhat lit-e'sall about:wherewe
came from, where our roots are, and where we are going: typicallythe kind of speech
you'd expectfrom an elder statesman(not to saya Dutch uncle)and not quite the kind
of stageI normallyt-eelhappy on.
Let me thereforementionanotherGarrickyhappening,this one on the personal
level. In 1993,I submitteda book on pragmaticsto a seriouspublisherunder a title
that I thought was extremely appropriate,but that the publisher adamantly and
consistentlyrefusedto place on the cover:'Out of the waste-basket: An introduction
to pragmatics'(someof my readersmay haveseena pre-publicationcopy).The book
waseventuallyacceptedundera new title (Mey 1993),and I supposeone could call my
presentproductiona Garrick-typestageshow,somethinglike: 'Out of the waste-basket,
into the fire!', harking birck to my book's original inscriptionas well as to the great

3 H".e is Horn, in his own words:


"lf thc coming of agc of an academic discipline is at least partly conclitioned on the emergence of a
braod, comprehensivc,intellectually honcst, and pedagogicallysound introductory textbook, pragmatics
is in pretty good shape. With the publication of lrvinson (1983), we have a text for pragmaties that is
s u p e r i o r t o a n y e x t a n t a n a l o g f o r i t s ' m o t h e r d i s c i p l i n e ' s e m a n l i c sa,n d c o m p a r e sf a v o r a b l y w i t h s t a n d a r d
r e x t s i n p h o n o l o g y a n d s y n t a x . . . (" 1 9 8 8 : 1 1 3 )
A socinl pragmatics for survivnl 241

actor'stalent of finding excruciatingly banal titles fur his own comedies"4


As we all know, titles are tricky - they may trick you into readinga book that
you had no intentionof reading,into doing thingsthat you were not supposedto do,
into wantingto say thingsthat you didn't mean or want to say.As an instance,take
thetitle of the presentpiece.Originally,I had venturedforth for my Kobe 'talkwith an
exuberant and grandiloquent'pragmatics in the third millennium'- whichwas supposed
to furnishthe audiencewith a vista of pragmaticsafter the turn of the century.(One
questionthat mrght have been discussed in this connectionrs, of course,the vexrng
problemwhetherthere will be any pragmaticsleft at all at that point of trme).
Realizingthat this was t'arbeyondthe reachesand capacitiesof my little crystal
ball, I decidedto go for the less bold title (actuallythe one heading the present
introductory section):'Pragmaticsin the Nineties'.This title had at leastthe advantage
of coveringa period of which roughlyone third is pastalready,thus relievingthe strain
on my gazingpowers by about the same tactor, since I wouldn't have to worry about
predicting what had alreadytakenplace(as Austinand Searlethemselves admonishus
in connectionwith that particularspeechact of 'predicting').
But even though somepressurethuswas taken off the title as far as predicting
the futurers concerned,part of the 'ninetiesis still with us in the form of the past; so
are, and will be, the things happeningright now and up to the magic vear 2000.
Wantingto make my'ninetiespictureas completeas possible,I would haveto basemy
gazings, for whateverthey'reworth, not only upon an analysisof what has happened
sofar,but alsoon an interpretationof what is happeningright now, and on a tentative
outlineof the developmentsthat I expectto take placein the comingyears.
A major concernof pragmatics, in general,is how to help peoJllebecomebetter
usersclfthe word, ncltjust users:pragmatics, in thisview,doesnot limit itselfto merely
lookingat the usersand describewhat they do, but gclesactivelyout (sometimeseven
out of its way) to discovermeansof helping the linguisticallyunderprivileged.This
explainsthe title of my piece.One major developmentof pragmatics,rn my opinion.
will centeritself around questionsof linguisticsurvival;hencemy subtitle,
An earlier subtitleof my piececonsideredthesemattersunder the headingsof
'Topics, nds,Perspectives';
Tre sincethis still seemsa practicallyusefuldivision,I shall
stickto it in what follows.

1.Topics

DwightBolinger,one of the nestorsof Americanlinguistics, once remarkedthat in his


opinion,there had been in our century"one - perhapsonly one - upsurgeof popular
interestin how languageaff'ectsour lives"(Bolinger1980:vii). The remark is made in
thePrefaceto a book that Bolingerpublishedafter his wife'sdeath;it is a labor of love.

*
Some samples: High lifc below the stats, The clondestrnentarnoge (this onc is actually
performcd in Drabblc's story!), Mis.srn her teens, The lying +'alet.
242 JacobL" Mey

and dedicatedto the dear departedone. The book is also quite unlike the other things
that Bolinger had producedin the courseof a long and fertile life as a linguist"In short,
it is a book in the spirit (albeit not in the tradition) of pragmatics.
The'upsurge'Bolingeris referringto, is that generatedby Alfred Korzybskiand
'General
his so-called Semantics'- a word that soon came to be a bugaboofor young
linguistsin the tifties like myself,who were warned explicitly againstKorzybski (and
against his best known follower and popularizer,the late S.I. Hayakawa, of sixties
notorietyand assortedother,senatorialfame).We were told that an interestin matters
'languageand people' had very
such as 'languageand society'.'languageand mind',
little to do with science.and certainlynothingwith linguistics.
As a result of all this, I nevergot to read Korzybskior Hayakawa,and Bolinger's
book, Languagetlte loaded weapon (1980), only rather late in life - to be exact, six
months after I had talked to its author on the phone for the last time, a year before his
death.Only then I decidedto tind out what that funny little book of his was all about.
By the time I had tinished the book, and had taught a freshmanclassbasedon it as a
text, Dwight Bolinger had passedaway,so I never had a chanceto tell him how much
I liked this work, and how close I felt he was to many of the things that we, as
pragrnaticists, stand for.
One may safely assume that Bolinger would not have objected to being
considered a pragmaticist(h" never called himself that explicitly).sThe term
'pragmatics' is not mentioned anywherein his book. Yet, the general tenor of it is
pragmatic,as witnessedby the quote above.It is also clear that Bolinger,in unraveling
the threads emanatingfrom Korzybski'swork, got as far back as to Sapir and Whorf -
the rest is silence.Taking into accountthe transatlantic gap, attestedalsoby the lack
of knowledge of Bolinger'sbook among most ContinentalEuropeanso,as well as the
fact that what Bcllingerpublishedin 1980had been written a number of yearsearlier
(in tact, most of his examplesstem from the years 1970-74),it seemssafe to say that
Bolinger (and probably most people on his side of the Atlantic) were unawareof a
European developmentin the seventiesthat was to spur a new "upsurgeof interestin
the way that languageatfecisour lives",a movementin linguisticsthat subsequently
came to be known aspragmatics.
As Bolinger'scasenicelyshows,ycludon't have to believein pragmaticsto be
a pragmatician- althoughit certainlyhelps.Not all of us are Bolingers;most of us are
hideboundby our petty beliefsand predilections, and rarelylift our eyesto look across
the fence that we so laboriouslyhave erectedto protect ourselvesfrom alien int-luences
and from disturbancesof our small circles.
In the spirit of the celebratedM. Jourdain (from Le bourgeois-gentilltomme by

5
Jef Verschucren (pcrs. comm.) has drawn my attention to rhe fact that Bolinger actively served
on thc IPrA Consultation Board from 1986 through 1990,when he had to step down becauseof his
faihng health.

6 A f"* honorable exceplion, such as Jan-Ola Ostman and Jef Verschueren. deserve to be
mcntioned; the latter actually reviewed Bolinger's book right after it came out (Verschueren 1981).
A socialpragnmtics
for survival 243

Molidre),who came to look upon himself one day and discoveredthat for tbrty years,
he had been speakingprose, for many of those who now regard themselvesas
pragmaticists, the coming of the new disciplinewas a welcome event. But there is a
difference:while Dwight Bolinger was a true, natural pragmaticist,l4lemust become
worthyof that name by laboring(sometimesagainstthe trendsof our time), carvingout
a nichefor what we think is the most importantelementin languagestudies:humans
andtheir use of language.
But noticethat what todayreadslike an invocation,or evenworse,a platitude,
wasnot at all commonlyacceptedin Bolinger'stimes of writing. The spirits of the
'upsurge'he is referring to: not only
the Korzybskisand Hayakawas,but even more so
(but naturally sarr comparaison)the Whorfs and Sapirs, were still haunting the
linguisticbackwoods,and woe unto him or her who venturedout there without the
necessary protective gear. Many would-be pragmaticistsof the early hours trying tct
enterthe LinguisticGarden were apt to suffer mutilation,or even untimelydeath,at
thehandsof the syntactichenchmenand the semanticgatekeepers, who preventedthe
non-initiated trom approachingthe garden'snlore remote parts,let alone communing
with the ugly thingsin the pragmaticwoodshed.
If you allow me to indulge a little more in personalreminiscences: the first
(pragmatic'
mentionof anything in my own writingsturns up as late as 1976,in a talk
I gavein Finlandunderthe title of 'Qualification, emancipatory languageand pragmatic
linguistics'(notice that I didn't dare to let'pragmatic'standalone!).In actualfact, I had
alreadystartedthe publicationof what was to become,after a number of editorial
mishapsand collapsingpublishinghouses,Lhe 7979volume entitled hagmalinguistics:
Theoryanclhaclrce, which managedto come out in one of the fortunate, but erratic
intersticeswhen the venerable publishing house of Mouton, The Hague (who had
published Chomsky'sflrst book in 1957)wasnot eithergoingbankruptor beingbought
up by the expandingfirm of Walter de Gruyter, Berlin.
Incidentally,if I may continuemy reminiscing, that volumewasitselfan offspring
froman earlierpaper I had givenat the XIth Congressof Linguistsin Bolognain 7912
- however,, that paper'stitle doesn'tmentionthe word 'pragmatic'at all, but usesthe
safer,lessoftensive,lessprogrammaticterm 'practical':'Some practicalaspectsof a
theoryof perfirrmance'(M.y 1974;notice how the title, judiciouslyand studiously,
coversthe author's linguistictracks by appealingto the then-currentofficial lingo).
Evenso, after the talk a representative of Mouton'swalked up to me and askedif I
couldbe persuadedto do a collectionof articleson subjectsrelatedto pragmatics.To
which,of course,I said Yes,and it wasthis collectionwhichfinallyappearedunder the
'pragmalinguistic'
label (Mey 1979),a term that had become popular for a while in
Germany,but had alreadyfallen into oblivion again by the end of the decade (see
M a a sl 9 T 3 a n d e s p e c i a l l y H a g e r , H a b e r l a n d a n d P
1a9 r7i3sb; y t h e w a y , i f o n e i s i n t o
dates,we have yet another memorabletwentiethanniversaryhere).
By and bye, people decidedthat it would be appropriateto start talking about
'pragmatics' also on the English-speaking linguisticscene,as it had happenedearlier
in Denmark, in 197011977, where the pragmatictide was in, riding on top of the anti-
authoritariancrestsurgingup from WesternGermany.Here, the "dominantdoctrine"
244 JocobL. Mry

(Maas 1973b)of Chomskyanismwas being dethronedand replacedby a 'societally-


relevant'linguistics,often understoodin terms of the 1968studentrevoltsand of the
political commitmentthat many academicswere trying to make in thoseyears.
Browsing through the writings on pragmaticsfrom that early period, one often
stops up and wonders.A tormal definition of pragmatics,if given at all, usuallydefers
summarily to Charles Morris' famous tripartition (1938): syntax, semantics,and
pragmatics.When it comes to a content-oriented descriptionof the new trend, one
notices that many linguistswho considerthemselvespragmaticists,rely mostly on
Searle'stheory of speechacts,which had just seenthe light of day (thus Wunderlich
in his famous'Mannheim Notes',printed 1972,but to be datedmuch earlier,probably
into the late sixties;cf. also Wunderlich's(1970)often quoted essay'On the role of
pragmaticsin linguistics', publishedin a journalfor teachersof German,but copiedand
off-printed, nationallyand internationally,more than any single piece of pragmatic
in those days).
literatr.rre
Others again,mainly from the Anglo-Americanlinguisticcomp, took their point
of departurein Grice'sfamous(mostlynot- or half-published) lectures,in which he set
forth the principles and maxims that became his claim to fame: the Cooperative
Principleand the Maxims of Quantity,Quality,Relevance,and Manner (Grice I975,
1978).Even today.allegianceto Grice is a kind of shibbolethin linguisticpragmatics:
some couldn'tdream of basingtheir thinkingon anythingbut Grice (philosophersand
mainstreamlinguistsventuringout into pragmatics;thus Wilson, Green, Horn, and
many more), while o_thers, mainly those whose researchoriginated in the 'Southern
'Conversation
Californran'tradition/ of Analysis'originatingwith Sacks,Schegloff,and
Jeff'erson(ct-.their seminalarticle in Language;Sackset al. 7974)take issuewith Grice
on counts of the (real or alleged)claim to universalityof the maxims (thus, e.g.,Ochs
Keenarn1916) or the restrictionof pragmaticquestionsto asking 'what does the
language user intend to mean with his or her utterance?'(ur pointed out by
Ve rsch uer en1994) .
These researchersstressthe importanceof the concept of 'context' in all
pragmaticthinking,and how this contextshouldn'tbe consideredstatic,but rather,be
seenas a dynamicand continuallydeveloping'activity systems'(Goodwin & Goodwin
1992:149tf;more on this below).Interestingly, the nameof Grice doesnot occur in all
of the volume from which the previousquotationis taken: none of the authors in
Duranti & Goodwin's important collectionRethinkingcontext(1992) even mentions
Grice: neither his principleor his maximsoccur in the Index of the book.
For others,the points were set in differentways,one of them being the well-
known one of socio-linguistics (often still spelledwith a hyphen);such a choicewas
berated by people like Wunderlich,who declaredthat "sociolinguistics is unable to
explain anything at all" (Maas & Wunderlich 1972:281); for others again,pragmatics
seerned to have become the all-encompassingumbrella uniting socio- and

a
' In contrast, the tradition inspired by Grice, and later by Searle
and their followers, is often
'Northern
called the Californian' one - which is a bit unfair. to say the least, to the 'Berkeley school'
around people like John Gumperz.
A social pragnnlics for sun,iv,al 245

psycholinguistics. as well as the sociologyand psychologyof language(thus Wille &


HarmsLarsen l97A:6lff; cf. also the cautiousplus sign in the title of the ground-
breakingwork of Hager, Haberland& Paris( 1973):Soziologie+ Lingvistik;one should
recallthat the latter three were studentsof Wunderlich's,who were not going to have
anytroublewith their masterand mentor).
Commonto all thesetrendsis the desireto declarepragmaticsan autonomous
zonewithin (sometimesoutside)of linguistics: this autonomyneedsto be established
especially in relationto the closestcompetitc-rr,semantics.(More than a decadelater,
GeoffreyLeechis still battlingwith the sameproblematicin hisPinciplesof Prugmatics,
where he tries to divide the waters between semanticsand pragmaticswithout
shortchanging the one or the other, or throwingout some hiddenbabies;1983:6).
Interesting,too, is the fact that the developmentof the Morrisian tradition in
morephilosophically-oriented approaches(Carnap,Lrwis, Montague)almostentirely
escaped the attentionof the linguiststryingto establishpragmaticsas a decentmember
of the linguisticsclub. EspeciallyCarnap is very clear in his statementsabout the
placement of pragmatics,and useswords that deserveto be quoted even today,and
perhapswith more right than the rather bland and programmatic,endlesslyquoted
passages from Morris (i938). Here is Carnap,writing more than 50yearsago,in 7942:

"Linguistics, in thc widest sense, is that branch of science which contains all empirical
invcstigation conccrning languages.It is thc dcscriptivc, empirical part of scmiotic (of spoken
or writtcn languages);hence it consists of pragmatics,scmantic.s,and descriptive syntax. But
thesc three parts are not on the same level; ltragntatics is the basrs for all of lingtistrcs...
s c m a n t i c sa n d s y n t a xa r c , s t r i c t l y s p e a k i n g ,p a r t s o f p r a g m a t i c s . (" 1 9 4 2 : 1 3 )

Carnap'sapproachto pragmaticscontinuedto fascinatethe philosophers,but


didnot appealto too many of their linguisticor behavioralsciencecoevals.This is all
themore astonishingbecauseCarnap,in his view of pragmatics, does not excludeany
of thetraditionalhuman disciplinesthat haveto do with humanbehavior;he mentions
in particular"the analysisof the relationsbetween speakingbehavior and other
behavior;... ethnologicaland sociologicalstudiesof the speakinghabits and their
ditferences in dittbrenttribes,differentagegroups,socialstrata;..."(ibid.) - all subjects
thatearlierwould have been classifiedas sociolinguistic or ethnolinguistic, but which
todayare consideredas truly pragmaticin nature.
The only direct historicalcontinuationof that early use of the term 'pragmatic'
withrelationto studiesof human (nowadayswe would say'user')behavioris tound in
thework by Watzlawicket al. (1967);in their pioneeringstudy,theseauthorsdid the
groundworktor a branch of pragmaticresearchthat would only come tcl fruition
decades later,in work (e.g.by Lacoste(1981)or Frank & Treichel(1989))on language
useby real people, here in a particulartype of situation:the medical or psychiatric
interview.But the studies of Watzlawick and his colleaguesremained mainly
unobserved by most of the linguisticcommunity.even by thosewho calledthemselves
p ra g m at ic isin
t s t he s e v e n ti e s .
Another earlytopic,identitiableas earlyas the beginningof the seventies, is the
settingasideof pragmaticsfrrlrnthe rest of linguisticsas somethingwhich is not 'exact',

I
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246 Jacob L. Mey

not 'formalizable',and perhaps should not be formalized at all. This methodological


'iron curtain' - which,
incidentally, goes back to the general aversion among
pragmaticiansto the formalizingapparatusesimposedby the Chomskyiteson the study
of language- and which now fiust like that other Iron Curtain) is a historicalcuriosum,
remainsremarkable,if not for other reasons,then becausethe presentwriter, in a joint
'Editorial' to the first issueof the
Joumal of hagmarics, explicitly distanced himself
from such formalizing attempts (Haberland & Mey 7977:6).
In those days, formalism was thought of as the enemy of societallyrelevant
research;the implication being that formalismand formal procedureswere nothing but
a way of idly spending one's intellectual capacitieson all sorts of inconsequential
trifles. Curiously enough (and fittingly, one could say), the quasi-official public
resurrectionof 'Formal Pragmatics'happenedin 1993at the very Conferencewhere
my original plenary talk was delivered, in a panel discussionconvened by, among
others,two of the sameauthorswho in 7977queriedthe useof formal approaches,and
- though they did not explicitly excludethem from their Jounnl - at least showed a
profound skepsistowardsthem, as witnessedby their eminentlydiplomatic (not to say
pragmatic)remark: "We'll see"(Haberland& Mey 1977:5).
Even more curiousis the fact that one of the first articleson formal pragmatics
was written as early as 1973by a person, Werner Kummer, who a year before had
published a full-sized book in which he defended a Marxian-basedtheory of texts
(Kummer 1975, 1976).Clearly,in thosevery early days,the waters were not as neatly
divided as they becamelater; one could perhapssaythat a little more murkinesswould
have been to the advantageof some who, being forced to come out of the closet,had
to show their 'true' colors as either formal playboysor as serious,society-oriented
linguistsand pragmaticists- with the benefit of hindsight,surelya ridiculousdistinction,
if ever there was any. Here, it behoovesus to remember (borrowing and adapting the
words of a great linguist,in a book that becamewidely read and famous before ever
breakinginto print 20 yearslater): 'There is alwaysa formal turtle under the pragmatic
hedge'o(Ross 1964)
Among the more hotly debatedtopics of early pragmaticswas the question of
restrictionson co-occurrence" The generativeframework allowedonly for very specific
rules that determinedwhat could be combinedwith what, if grammaticalitywas to be
conservecl.In an early article,GeorgeLakoff (I97I) was one of the first to questionthe
wisdom of such restrictions,and the validity of imposingthem acrossthe board. He
pointed out that the rule accordingto which a non-humanor inanimatereferent should
not co-occurwith the 'human' pronounslrclshelwho,was liable to be broken in many
caseswhere we had what the ancientgrammarianscalled a constructioad sensum.(cf.
Lakoft's (1971) example:'My cat,wlto believesI'm a fool, enjoystormenting me'; see
also Mey 1993:26).
Another of the early masters,Chuck Fillmore, directedhis attention as early as
1971to the problem of 'pragmaticreference'.The classicalexamples,by now common

B The last word for the occasion to


be pronounced [haz].
A social pragnntics for survival 247

propertyof everyfirst coursein linguistics,need only to be mentionedto draw forth a


smileof recognition:'Hello, this is ChuckFillmore.Couldyou sendover a box yea big?'
(see,e.9.,Fillmore I976:90;there is a fbotnotereferenceto an earlierpaper,originally
deliveredat the 1971GeorgetownRound Table; Fillmore 1972).The point of this and
many other. similar examplesis to identify a referent under syntacticallycloudy
('opaque'). but pragmaticallyquite clear('transparent') conditions.The sameholdsfor
LauriKarttunen'sand BarbaraPartee'sso-called'l:rzyproncluns';let me just quote the
famclusman who gave his paycheckto his mistress,and was said to be more stupid
thanthe one who gave it to his wife (Partee 1972).(As one sees,ours are not the only
timeswhena real linguistis one who is able to constructa societallyrelevantexample)"
AIso about the sametime, a numberof peoplein the linguisticcamp.fbllowing
the philosophers, startedto worry about presuppositions (and some haven'tstopped
worryingever since).The worrieshere were initiallyof the more philosophical,truth-
conditionally oriented kind: under what conditionscan a sentencestay true even if
someof its implicit('presupposed') contentbecomesnegated?And then therewere the
conditions for speechacts and their validity,where one couldn't always(or too well)
speakof 'truth' - one of the first greatinsights(due mainlyto Austin and Searle)which
helpedto break the strangleholdthat the syntacticians, and aboveall the semanticists,
traditionallyhad had on the linguists.Truth conditionswere replaced by felicity
conditions, but still within the environmentof the singlespeakerand his/herutterance
Questions of 'contextualization' had to wait another decadeor so (more on this in
Section2, below).
All thesetopics,many of which havebecomeclassics in the linguistic-pragmatic
repertoire,bear witnessto the incrediblebarriers that had to be overcome for a
phenomenonto be recognizedas transcendingthe (syntacticor semantic)domains
whereit originally had been discovered.Less charitably,some talked about such
'transcendental'phenomena ashavingthe'wastebasket' astheir properdestination(one
of the first to do so was Yehoshua Bar-Hillel, in a very early paper, 191I)" A
wastebasket is a placeyou put thingsthat you want to get rid of, or don't know what
to do with: hence a categorywas establishedfor phenomena thar wouldn't iet
themselves be neatlydescribedwith the utensilsthat were availablein classicalsyntax
andsemantics.
One could saythat the first characteristicof pragmaticsthus was a negativeone:
pragmatics was alien to the 'regular'linguisticcategoriesand domains.In order to be
respectable, a pragmaticdiscoveryhad to be placedwithin the well-knownconfinesof
thelinguisticterritory,and exhibita propertythat was recognizedas legallyclassifying
the phenomenon in question as either belonging to syntax or semantics.This
'reductionist'tendencvkept thingsin their places,and linguistshappy;the wastebasket
is thusan expressionfor the typical linguist'slnnor vacui,a reluctanceto leave things
out ln the open, undefinedspacesof reality.
By contrast,the pragmaticiststhemselvesstartedout by insisting,positively,that
somethings not only did not fit into, but had to stay outside of, the recognized
categorizatrons in clrder to be 'saved as phenomena'(tu paraphrasea classical
248 Jacob L. Mq,

expression;.e Otien, it took a non-linguistto saythesethings,and insiston them in the


proper fashion,much againstmany linguists'will.
The casethat first comesto mind as an early instanceof this 'interference'by
non-linguistsin linguisticmattersis, of course,the discoveryand propagationof the
phenomenoncalled 'speechacts'by philosopherssuchas Austin and Searle,and the
subsequent incorporationof their discoveries into classical
linguisticthinking.But notice
that it took yearsbefore the initial semanticcastin which speechact theory was clad,
'encodingism',to use Bickhard &
finally could be dismantled(speechactsas a caseof
Campbell'sterminology:1992).not to speakof the traditionalists' endeavorsto reduce
speechacts and other phenomenato particularcasesof certainsyntacticor semantic
propertiesof the language,e.g.by assumingsomekind of 'performative'deep (or at
least 'deeper') structure, as in the early versionsof the so-called'performativity
hypothesis',originally(and specifically) devisedto explainawaysome of the problems
raised in the wake of the burgeclningtheory of speechacts.(For a discussionof this
h yp o th e s iss.ee M ey 19 9 3 :1 1 8 ,1 4 8 ).

2. Trends

For all the topics mentioned in the previous section, a common metaphorical
'eruption',
denominatorcould be that of a 'disruption',respectively an to be controlled,
respectivelycontained,by and within the given framework. The case of speech act
theory is a clear exampleof this doubletendency.While speechacts,on the one hand,
threaten to disrupt the framework of syntactictheory by not always or necessarily
respectingthe 'grammaticality'criterion (i.e.,beingexpressed in grammaticallycorrect
sentences),and thus have to be controlled (preferablyby rule-like statements),at the
same time they transcendthe boundariesof syntaxand semantics:they are eruptions
that have to be pushed down below the surface, preferably with the help of
'constraints',that is, conditionscontrollingoutput (on rules vs. constraints,see M.y
lee1).
A first approximationof this trend is alreadyvisible in syntaxin the late sixties
in the form of what George Lakotf called 'global rules' - in reality a further
developmentof Chomsky'searlier(1965)conceptof 'selectionalrestrictions':whereas
the former were put in the form of rules and conditionson rules, the latter were
formed as conditionsthat operatedon the output of severalrulesat one and the same
ti me .
In the same sense,one could say that the 'sincerity conditions' and 'felicity
conditions'on speechacts,developedby Austin and perfectedand systematizedby
Searle under the watchful eye of Grice, are diff'erentanimals:the former are derived
from a rule, the sincerityrule (Searle1969:63),the secondare really conditionson
output, constraintson 'where to put your act', or 'where to do thingswith words',as

9 Thc quote (vcrv popular among Medicvalscholars) goes back to


the Neoplatonic philosopher
P r o c l u s( 4 1 6 - 4 8 5A . D . ) ( 1 9 0 1 :5 . 1 0 ) .
A social pragntatics for sun,ivnl 249

Rosspointedout in an early (1975)article.Ross'conclusion is typicalfor the trendsof


the times:while seeingclearlythat it is impossibleto separatesyntaxand semantics
trom pragmatics("it is not possibleto relegates1'ntacticand pragmatic processesto
ditferentcomponentsof the grammar";1975:252),his solutionis to createyet another
'component', a 'pragmantax',in which all of the three can live happily togetherever
after.In cltherwords, if one cannot put pragmaticsinto syntaxor semantics,the next
bestthing is to put everythinginto everything("without abandoningthe distinction
betweenpragmatic,semantic,and syntacticaspectsof linguisticstructure",as Ross
wishfullyremarks a t'ew sentencesfurther down).
The real problem here is perhapsnot the trend to haveconstraintsrather than
rulesas one's explanatorymechanism,but the fact that one simply cannot operate
pragmatically within a strictlygrammaticalframework.The reasonfor this is not to be
soughtin a more or less theoreticalproblematic:whether or not the grammar has
certatnparts('components'), or whetheror not thosepartsshouldbe kept separateor
allowedto cctalesce, but in the fact that human useilf languageis characterizednot by
isolatedmessages with separatestructuresand meanings, but by greaterunitsof context
overarching the individualutteranceand assigning it its proper value,also in terms of
the classicalgrammaticaidistinctions.
As one of the 'Great Danes',Louis Hjelmslev,put it a long time (actuallymore
than50 years)ago,the unit of linguisticresearchis not the sentenceor the word or the
morpheme,but the text "in its undividedand absoluteintegrity"(Hjelmslev1943:73;
Engl.transl.1954:7).What we are dealingwith here,is a trend awayfrom individual
meaningsand interpretations,and toward an understanding of the utteranceand its
partsin relationto a greaterwhole;however,thiswhole cannotbe detinedunrquelyin
'immanent'terms, as
Hjelmslevand the structuraiiststhought.The term discoursethat
hascrept into the linguisticterminologyin recentyears,tries to capturethis trend by
pointingout that the meaning of a sentencecannot be formally deduced from its
syntacticand semanticcomponents:there is alwaysa partnerto any utterance,and any
utteranceis in essencepart of a greaterdialogue,a 'discourse'.10
This insightcame to linguisticsas part of what is often called 'the pragmatic
turn', defined not so much in terms of the topics that I talked abclut earlier as
disruptions(or eruptions) of (or on) the linguisticsurface,as in terms of trends that
camein trom the heat, so to speak,or at any rate from without linguistics.Among
thoseincomingoutsiders,two provedto be especiallysuccessful in gaininga foothold;
theywere,first of all, conversation analysis(CA), and second,studiesof what we were
wontto call in the seventies:'the societallyreievantaspectsof linguistics'"
While CA originatedwithin ethnomethodology, it soon capturedthe linguists',

10'Dn.(rrrse'is
t a k c n h c r e i n t h e t r a d i t i o n e s t a b l i s h e db y M i c h e l F o u c a u l t ( s e e ,e . g . , 1 9 7 2 ) .
Duranti& Goodwin rcmark, much to the point, that
"Discourse, hcrc, should not be confusedwith its usagein other analytical traditions in which
it means simply the flow of conversation,or a text longer than a sentence.Rather, for Foucault,
a discoursc is a cultural complcx of signs and practices that regulates how we live socially."
( 1 9 9 2 :3 0 ) .
254 JacobL Mey

particularlythe pragmaticists',interest(witneSS, €.9.rthe amount of spaceand coverage


it is given in one of the standardreferenceworks on pragmatics,Lrvinson's 1983classic
of that name, where almost one-tourth of the book is devoted to CA). Conversation
analystswere among the first to establishthe principle that whateveris said, is said in
a cotilext where it must have a meaning, independent of all sorts of grammatical
considerations. In a way, the conversationanalystsstickto Hjelmslev'stenet about the
text as the "absoluteand undivided"unit of linguisticanalysis;but they don't buy into
his demand tor 'immanence',understoodas the requirementthat the meaningof an
utterance be arrived at by a deductiveprocess.Instead,they maintain that e.g. in a
question-answersituation, whatever is given as the answer,ls the answer; what the
analyst should worry about is how this answer came to be given in the actual
surroundings,which 'traffic rules' were valid, observed,and/or broken.
Recallingour earlier distinctionbetweenrules and constraints,one could say
that in CA, rules and constraintsflow together:what is a rule for one speaker,becomes
the next speaker'sconstraint,and so on, recursively.One speaker'sutterance setsthe
scene and marks the turn for the next speakerin a continuousprocess,the result of
which is not clear until one of the partiescallsan end to the interchange.
What many conversationanalystsdid not worry about, at least not initially or
explicitly (and this is where the other 'outsider'is coming in) are the background
elementsof any conversation:CA dealsonly with visible(or audible) partners,with
visible (or mostly audible) 'contextualizationcues' (to use Gumperz' term; 1992).By
contrast,pragmaticistshave long been aware that usersof language,in their linguistic
dealings,are faced with a hidden partner: society.If one can be permitted to call CA
the 'overt' dark horseof linguistics, societyis its 'covert'match,an even darker horse
to boot. Societyis the silent,but never sleeping,partner of all conversation;society
determineswhat we can sayand how we sayit, and in what kind of situationor context.
It is in this connectionthat the importantnotion of 'contextualization'was first
developed. Earlier, linguists had distinguishedbetween what they called the
(immediate) 'co-text' of an utterance,and its (broader) 'context'.However, it was still
understoodthat this context baseditself primarily on what was 'known', or 'the case',
and on the ways interactantswere able to use inferencingprocessesto get at those
'tacts':
that which was called 'mutual' or 'backgroundknowledge'.Gumperz, on the
other hand, made it clear that such a conceptwas far too static: context is a dynamic
notion, and not only that: the context is built up, 'constructed',by the interactantsin
their activity of interaction:'hors de I'interaction,point de contexte',one could
paraphrasea well-knowntheologicalapophthegm.Here is Gumperz himself:

"Although such background assumptionsbuild on extralinguistic 'knowledge of this world', in


any onc conversation this knowledge is reinterpreted as part of theprocessof conversingsothat
it is interactively, thus ultimately socially,constructed" (1992:230; my cmphasis).

Others(suchas Duranti) go evenfurther:for them,the languageusedin a social


context does not only reflecl the world, it activelycreatesit, to the extent that the
interlocutorsagree on their respectiveplacingsin that world and acceptthe 'coercing'
force of language persuading them to take their proper stances,"an emergent
A social pragmatics for sun,ival 251

pragmatrctbrce that constrainshuman behavior and makes recipientsdo what they


night not otherwisedo." (1992:80). In other words, this use of languageis not Jusr
tnteractive,but 'retlexive',as Duranti & Goodwin call it in the introductionto thelr
recentreader(1992:7).
One of the first in Europe to becomeawareof the importanceof socialfactors
in situationsof languageuse (such as the classroom,official encounters,public
speaking,etc.) was, again, not a linguist.but a teacher (an educationalist,if one
prefers):BasilBernstein(see,e.g.,1971-1975,1990). And eventhoughhis theorieshave
met with much well-tbunded criticism, Bernstein's basic insights are pretty
uncontroversial: the societalcontexthas a decisiveinfluenceon the way we use,and
are able to use' our linguisticinheritance:some of us are simply better at using
language, becausewe havebeen better endowedotherwise(in all sensesof the word).
The trend towards a societallyrelevant linguisticsbecame embodied in
pragmatics as earlyas the late sixties,especiallyin WesternEurope.Much of this trend
wasinf-luenced by the rise of neo-Marxiandoctrine,and much of it stayedcaptive ln
an unfruitfullvexploitedtheoreticaltrameworkwhich later collapsedunder lts own
weight.Yet, a numberof fertile approaches and hypotheses were generatedwithin thrs
framework,some of which have survivedone way or another. in different guisesand
shapes, even though they no longer can be called explicitlyMarxian.
A centralnotion in this respectis that of power:Who has the right to define a
situation,and what powergiveshim or her the right to do so?Beingconscious
linguistic
of the existenceof a (perhapsinvisible,but no lessreal) societalpower in situations
whereone would not even begin to dream of such a possibility,can contribute to
'liberating'
the usersfrom their invisible,but very etfective'linguisticchains',to usean
expressiondue to the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. In this respect,
pragmatics has been instrumentalin discoveringand unveilingthose hidden power
structures:as instances, cf. the work by peoplelike Bourdieu,Fairclough.and the whole
tradrtionof what used to be optimisticallycalled 'emancipatorylinguistics'in the
seventies.

3. Perspectives

Linguistshave seenit as one of their most importanttasksto assistin, and to further,


theconservation of the humanculturalheritagecalledlanguage. To this end, they have
deployedimmense resources of time and personal effort, and elicited (often
successfullv)uncounted (although, of course, never sufficient) contributions from
variousinterestedand r-tot-so-interested suchas the variousnationalresearch
agencies,
fundinginstitutions.local enterprises,
and eventheir own and others'private pockets.
The philosophybehindthispolicyof conservation hasbeenthat languagereflects
oneof the most interestingand encompassing manifestationsof the human mind, and
assuchdeservesto be respected,treatedwell, and kept alive,even againstgreat odds.
The ongoing debates on 'endangeredlanguages'(e.g. at the XVth International
Congressof Linguistsin Qu6bec, 7992,and the discussions in recent issuesof the
252 .lncobL. Met'

journal Lartgttage) have been symptomatic in this respect (See Hale et al" 1992;
Ladefoged 1993 Dorian 1993).
The emphasis here has been on keeping what (still) is there, and delivering it
to the next generzrtion;cortsen,ationis the name of the game. To do the conservationist
1ob properly. however! one has to be sure that one does not propagate an erroneous
pictr.rreof reality; hence a great concern with the factual, descriptive aspects of the
languages that are focused on, as well as (albeit to a lesser degree) with the
classificatory aspects. both genetic and typological, such as have been in the focus of
m u c h l i n g u i s t i ct h i n k i n g , b o t h i n e a r h e r p e r i o d s a n d r e c e n t l y .
In prugmatics, thc need to distinguish itself from exclusively descriptive
'describee'
approaches hus been accompanied by an emphasis on taking the into
ilccount as ?ln essential part of the object (language) that one wanted to describe. The
social and cultural cotiexts of languages.as well as the conditions these contexts impose
on their users. have been of paramount interest for pragmaticists,as we have seen in
the previous scctitln.
All these activities, however. can be said to be basically retroactive,in that they
attempt tu reproduce a state of attairs. or bring a more primitive state of affairs up to
date. An exzrmpleof the latter is the emphasis on alphabetization, as embodied in the
literacy campai_unsthat have been waged in recent decadesboth at the home front and
'natives',
in the bush. The purpose of such campaigns was to give the whether they
were residents of the inner city or of the Gran Chaco, a chance to come up to par, and
participirte in modern lit'e on an equal footing with the rest of humanity. What
'grown
happened with them after that was not our concern. Once they had up',
lin_quistically. they were supposed to manage their own lives.
The retroactive policies that were defined in this way had a necessarily static
chnrzrcter.Moreover. they were usually determined with the needs of the campaigners
(the linguists. subsidiarily,the teachers,the colonizers,or the evangelists)in mind. The
'language
needs of the dontirtated population at large, of the carriers', were flltered
through the dominarul needs of the peclple who were in charge, the gatekeepers of the
ianguttge game. Thc people. rather than playing the game as subjects,were considered
to be objects. pawns that could be moved across the board whenever the real players
cleemed such a move neccssaryor useful.
'native
At the same tirne that being speakers' of an endangered language gave
Inanv clf these dorninated peoples a certain status and authurity (that of 'being always
right', as we used to say). their real status remained that of a subordinate group; and
'Thank
(apart from un occasiclnal You' in the preface of a doctoral dissertation) they
didn't get much in return for their erssistance from the visiting linguist or anthropologist.
The bartering was not on ii scale of mutual parity; there was no real interactiort.
The inte raction that did take place, moreover, was often, if not always. prefaced
'How
by the thought on the purt of the dominating visitors: can I use this for my
projec:t.proposal, article, talk, firm, religion, etc.?' Real interaction, that is, interaction
on equal terms, with actual needs and wants placed on the bargaining table, was
impossible, Also because in addition, neither party mastered the other's language and
culture well enough to engage in a discourse of parity. A truly interactive mode of
A socialpragnuilic,.s
for sun'ival 253

language descripticln, maintenance. and cultivationwasthereforethe exceptlon,not the


ru l e.
And even in caseswhere there was a real will on the part of the linguistto
interacton equal terms with the 'natives',he or she found him-/herselfoften in the
impossible positionof beingdefined,not by the interactants, but by the interactionitself
anditslinguisticwaysof expression. The Belgizrn ethnographer-linguist Rik Pinxtentells
a movingstory of how he initiallycame to be definedas the 'enemy',only later to be
calleda "medecine[sic] man" amongthe Navajos,as a token of respect:but even so,
everyetfort at discussing'privilegedknowledge'(such as that regardingthe Navalo
worldview)with membersof the tribe was barredby the fact of his being an outsider.
whocouldnot partakeof intormationbelongingto the tribe and its elders.Only after
oneof their'very wise old men', Curly Mustache,had died, Pinxtenand his wife were
givenaccessto intormationwhich earlier had formed part of the old man's stock of
kn o wledge. ( 1991:13 6 ).
From another point of view, this lack of interactionis als<lone of the mnin
elements in the concernsof otherwisewell-meaning scientists and adrninistrators(bclth
nativeand non-native)who advocatea policy of 'leavrngthe people alone'. This
attitudegoesback all the way to the Romanticperiod; for instance,the well-known
Dutch 19th century novelistMultatuli adoptedthis stancein his famous novel Mu.r
Hut,elaar,or: Tlrc u1ffeeauctiottsof the Dtttch TradingCompany (whrch was later made
rntoa very successfulmovie). In certain cases,the colonizerwould go as far in this
'leavingalone' as to become one of the
colonized('going native', as it used to be
ca l l ed) , ' h. r dis
s app e a ri n g
a s a to re i g ne l e me n tb y adopti nga quasi -nati ve (but not
nece:;arilydorninated)status.Casesin point are the JesuitFr. Ricci in 17th century
China,or the French painter Gauguin on Tahiti in the 19th century, as well as
numerous dedicatedmissionaries, doctors,and otherdevelopmentworkersin our times.
While sucha negativecolonialization policy(or lackof policy)fits in well in with
thegeneraltendencyof our times tclwithdrawfrom colonialand oppressivepositions,
it hasalsoits drawbacks.First of all, as NancyDorian hasremarked(in connectionwith
the Lartgttagedebates on endangeredlanguages;Dorian 1993), "one's fieldwork,
h o w ev er ant is ept icit m a y try to b e , i n e v i ta b l yh a s p ol i ti calovertones"(1993:575).In
particular, shepointsout (arguingagainstLadefoged1992),that "linguisticsalvagework
...is inevitablya political act,just as any other act touchingthat languagewould be"
(ibid.:574).The implicationis that the linguistwho decidesto 'leavelanguagealone'
in the *rse of the native peoples(as Ladefogedseemsto advocate;cf.: "That choice
[eitherto preserveor not to preservetheir language]and any other r:hoicesthat the
Toda [a Central Indian tribe of Dravidian stock] might make, are clearly therr
prerogative"; 7992:810)is lust as politicalas the linguistwho decidesthat something
hasto be drlne to preservean endangeredlanguage.The linguist"cannot enter the
threatened-language equationwithoutbecominga factorin it", saysDorian (1993:578).
On the cltherhand.decolonialization hasnot alwaysresultedin betterconditions
of lit.etbr the former colonized"The colonialpowers,pullingout of their lost territories,
oftenlefl them in a shambles:there just was nothingmore for thern to do, in every
possible senseof the word. By contrast.the linguistspullingout of the responsibilities
254 Jacob L. M"y

that formation and experience,implicitlyor explicitly,haveplacedupon their shoulders,


cannot defend themselvesby statingthat "it is paternalisticof linguiststo assumethat
they know what is best for the community"(Ladefoged1992:810).The linguistmay not
krtow: but he/she usually possesses some inforrnation that could be useful if it were
sharedwith the speakersof the endangeredlanguage(thus,Dorian mentionsthe tact
that tlrst generation speakerswho decide to abandon their languagein favor of a
dominant idiom, risk to be told by their grandchildrenthat they were wrong not to
preservetheir linguisticheritage;1993:576-577). Clearly,someimplicationsof language
loss can be seenbetter at a distanceby'neutral' observerswho have no practical axes
to whet.
Yet, if we turn the perspectivearound, it remains true that linguists and
fieldworkers have not formulated anyproactivepolicy with regard to native, possibly
endangeredlanguages.First of all, the immediateaim has been to give the people a
way to write and read their language,to make them'literate', otlen with the underlying
aim of familiarizing them with Western moral, religious, and political values and
systems:to allow them to 'join the twentieth century', ESit is often called. Second,
linguistshave not askedthemselvesthe questionwhat to tell thesepeople to do with
their language,once they are able to write it: providemore and better examplesto the
linguists,or take over the linguists'job, and 'salvaging'their own language?(Not that
this problem is restrictedto the underdevelopedand developingcountries;one could
equallywell ask if the purposeof making our own people literate is to enable them to
read the tabloid pressand comic strips).It standsto reasonthat no linguist (alone or
as a g{oup),isable to changethe politicaland economicconditionsof the people he
or she is working with. In particular, as the Danish linguist Rischel perceptivelyhas
remarked ( 1986), if damage has been done to the survival conditions of the local
people, and thus also to their language'schancesof surviving,the odds are that such
damagemay alreadyhave been done before the linguistarrived on the scene,by forces
that are out of the linguists'(and the native speakers')control. Hence,we need to ask
the question of conservationin a more pertinent, proactive fashion, one that could
guide pragmaticiansinto new areasof study.
It is commonlyagreedthat one of the areasin which linguisticshas 'come of
age; in pragmaticsis the shift of interestin languageas such as contrastedto language
as used.The idea of the Native Speaker(that I commentedon above),who is always
right, and therefore never found, exceptin Chomsky'sworks (e.g. 1965),is replacedby
the languageuser,who is almost alwayswrong,judgedby the standardsof prescriptive
grammar,but who managesto get a messageacross,who is able to communicate.
The Native Speakeridolatrygoesbasicallyback to the romanticnotion of the
noble, unspoilt native, whose very nature was good and whose languageonly needed
to be written down to become the object of the greatest- indeed the only legitimate-
interest tor the linguist. Traces of this can be found in the terminology used by
linguists,also in connectionswhere the Native Speakerdoes not explicitly enter the
linguisticscene.Cf. the following passagefrom Britto (1991: 66-67):

"[aluthentic use[isthatlwhichonespeaks
...language spontaneously, in natural
interpersonally,
A social prngnatics for survival 255

or real-lifc situations, ... Authentic speech relates to the type of communication that existed
when humans werc still illiterate and had not yet learned to manipulate language purely for
aesthetic,oratorical, artistic, literary, or histrionic purposes."

Apart from the fact that it is patently false that 'illiterate' societiesshould not
beableto 'manipulate'languagefor artisticpurposes(think of Homer!), underlyingthis
wholepassageis a notion of 'naturalness' which is alien to the real languagethat the
pragmaticist studies.Aller all, what is'naturallanguage'? (I am not concernedwith the
thing that computer people call 'natural language'- that's another story, and their.
headache). Natural language,like Winnicott'slittle child, does not exist - at least not
in the senseeulogizedby Britto in the passagequoted; neither does 'conversation',
considered by many of its protagonistsas the "prototypicalkind of languageuse", the
'naturaldialogue'in which all acquisition
(and use) of languageis embedded as in a
'matrix'(cf. Levinson
1983:284).
Parallelwith the romanticnotion of 'authenticity', anotherpopular notion (also
alreadymentioned) deservesto be debunked in the name of pragmatics: that of
languages as 'endangeredspecies'.The kind of linguisticbotanism that exclusively
focuseson the disappearanceof a linguisticvariety,without askingwho were the
keepersof that variety,who were the language'sspeakers,and under what conditions
theirlanguages disappearedand how they became'endangered'in the first place,has
nothingto do with a realistic,proactiveview on languageas used by real humans,not
by abstractNative Speakers,as we have seen above.
Similarly,a proactive approachto literarywould envisagepotential future uses
of thewrittenword, and take measuresand precautions to ensurethat it would be used
in the best possibleway. But not only that: a proactiveapproachwill focus on recent
advances in the areasof discourseanalysisand literary pragmatics,with emphasison
the 'role of the reader',to quote a famous title by Umberto E,co(1979): the user of
language,in this case the reader, is supposedto be a major, active element in the
creationof the text. Texts are not packagesdelivered neatly at the consumer's
doorstep,like milk used to be in the good old days;the packagethat is deliveredis in
realitya benevolentkind of time bomb, Bolinger's'loaded weapon',destinedto be set
off or fired by the reader at the moment of openingthe book, or by the spectatorat
curtaintime.
Similarly, a proactive approach to communicationwould ask what kind of
knowledgeand information would be important to future generations,and how we
shouldgo about communicatingit to them. Rather than give our successors a neatly
wrappedup, but mainly passive,legacyof our culture (in the spirit and image of our
would-becommunicationwith extraterrestrialbeings; cf. the notorious 'Voyager
tablets'), we should endeavorto guide them on and help them avoid our mistakes,
ratherthan tell them what to do with their own lives,languages, and cultures.
Finally, a proactiveapproachto problemsof context(in the widest senseof the
term: not just the immediate co-text of a message)would not merely establish
contextualconditions for a particular use of language,but look further into the
problemsof contexts,and of contextualization in general:what conditionsare favorable
256 JacohL. MrL

to what kind of languageuse. and what contextswould we like to promote in this


'evolution', 'progress',
connection in the name of such time-honoredconceptsas
'development',or eventhe now increasingly popularnotionof an 'ecologyof language'?
In thrs connection,the role of the linguist,especiallythe linguistas tieldworker,
becomesonce again crucial: the contextualconditionsfor his or her work have to be
scrutinizedcritically and defined in a larger setting than a simple registrationof
perishablematerial.Just as there is no true 'NativeSpeaker'(seeMey 1981),there is
no really 'true and blue' linguist.Every linguist representssome political power and
some political stance:what we can do to encouragethe developmentof an ecological
approach to languagestudiesand field work is to ensurethat the conditionslocally are
such that we do not have to interfere as much with the languageas we traditionally
have been forced to, in the best interestof the languagesand their speakers.An ideal
situationwould of coursebe one where the speakersof the languagewere empowered,
or empowered themselves,to deal with the linguisticissuesthat they are contronted
with in their daily and professionallives;but we must realize that in order for them to
do that properly, it will be necessaryfor us to interfere at some point, minimally to
share experiencesand give advice, maximally to engageactively on the side of the
threatened populations without thinking too much about our role as "responsible
linguistswith professionaldetachment"(Ladefoged1993:811).
The perspectiveof the study of pragmaticsat the end of the 20th century is
closelybound up with this notion of proactivelytrying to identiff some trends in the
spirit of the above:a proactiveevoltttionon the basisof the prevalentconditionsof use
and users.Clearly,in this processwe are facedwith a dialectic:historically,the material
basisfor evolutiondeterminesthe possibilities of evolutionitself,but on the other hand,
evolution cannot be understoodas a mechanicalprocessthat just happens; it is
determined by the understandingthat people have of their own lives, including their
futures. The future may already have begun,as Robert Jungk used to say,but that is
only half the truth: we have begun the future, we havecut into it, not like one slicesoff
and gobbles up a piece of birthday cake before the party, but rather by pulling away
the rug from under the party itself.
Orre could perhapsdefine the future missionof pragmaticsas 'the transmissiorr
of vital contextsfor languageuse'.The word 'mission'is usedhere on purpose,since
what is at stakecan be comparedto what religiouspeoplecall a'mission':pragmaticists
are missionariesfor a better use of language,they prepare the way for the true
'messengersof the word' -
linguistic message,they are not the lifelessword of the
grammarians,but the living word, as spokenby real users.
However, the word is nothing out of its environment;understandingthe users'
world is a necessaryprerequisitefor understandingtheir words.Every word has to be
fleshed out in its proper context, so that we can 'see its glory' (and real meaning),
'while it is living amongstus'.
Take again the caseof the 'endangeredlanguages':their words cannot be saved
in isolation,exceptin a grammaticaldescription, for the edificationof the linguistsonly.
To save languages,one has to save their users.Words need a world; languages,like
users,need a vital contexlfor survival.
A social pragnratics for survit'al 251

Such vital contexts,furthermore, are social,that is, they originate in. and are
continuedthrough,the medium of society.The emphasison words as 'signs',carriers
of meaning,or 'signifiants',tends to overlook this socialaspect.For Saussureand his
followers,the syntagmaticcontext of the signitieris purely concatenative,whereasthe
paradigmatic contextis at mostan'associative'(individually-psychological) one; neither
is a truly socialcontext.But if it is the contextthat carriesthe meaningsof the words,
wordingitself should not be describedexclusivelyas simple signifying,but rather, as a
processof establishingand continuing a social signification,in a societaldiscourse.
Wordsare carriersof socialmeaning;the 'signitiant'is in realitya 'sociofiant',a creator
of a socialcontext.
The words,furthermore,"[do] not belongto a particularindividual,but to the
societywhich that individualbelongsto", to borrow the JapaneselinguistYamaguchi's
pithyexpressionQ994:239). Both languageitself and its contextare primarily societal,
i.e.theybelongto the peopleliving,breathing,and workingin that society.That means,
not onlv that their signifyingin 'sociofication',their creation of the social context, is
inextricablybound up with their words and with their culture; but also, that they are
thefirstnatural'gatekeepers' to, and authorizersof, any useof their socialrealitiesand
culturalartifacts,among these their language.Such an attitude may conflict with the
traditional expectationsof the linguists and other cultural fieldworkers (such as
sociologists, anthropologists,and so on) who have consideredpeople primarily as
sources of data, as 'informants',and not as partnersin a joint effort of safeguardingthe
culture,or protecting'endangeredlanguages' from extinction,as in the casesquoted
above.
Fortunately,thereare signsin the air that thisattitudeamonglinguistsand other
cultureworkers is changing.Linguistsare becomingmore and more aware of the basic
problemsinvolvedin gatheringintormationin nativesettings,in'extracting'datafrom
their'informants',as we usedto say.A heightenedawareness of the conditionsunder
whichmany native people live, in closecontactwith their history,as it is embeddedin
theirsacredsitesand burial places,hashelpedlinguistsavoidsomeof the worst pitfalls
of patronizingattitudessuchas 'knowingwhat is best' for those'primitive' people.
A good example of nativesregainingcontrol over their own past and present
livesand culture,includingtheir language,is found in the institutionknown as CRATT
(for'Cultural ResourcesAdvisoryTask Team'), operatingamong the North American
Hopi. CRATT is a body consistingof a dozen and a half tribal cultural and religious
leaderswho are activelyconcernedwith the issuesof conservationand maintenanceof
the Hopi cultural and religious heritage.They act currently as a governingbody for
anthropologicalresearchwork to be performed among their kin. CRATT operates
underthe auspicesof the Hopi Culture PreservationOftice, and is thus fully under the
controlof the members of the socialcontext in which the Hopi culture and religion is
embedded.Field workers in anthropologyand linguisticswill have to conform to the
norms,and staywithin the limits of the traditionalculture,and perform their field work
'Hopi Wuy' - which
in accordancewith the in certain casesmay entail a ban or a
limitationon what researcherswill be allowedto publishof their work on Hopi matters.
(Source:Dongoskeet al. 1994).
258 JacobL.Mty

Needlessto say that such a situation,which contrastssharply with the earlier


state of affairs,in which the traditionalanthropologyor linguisticsworker went into'the
field' and came back with some 'data' (which he or she as a rule hadn't even paid for)
may strike us as novel, and maybe even a bit annoying.The reason is that for the
longesttime, we have been accustomedto a situationwhere the representativeof the
dominant culture also was the de facto dominant actor in the researchprocess,while
the membersof the dominatedculture acted as passiveproviders('donor' is too strong
a word) of the incomingtleldworkers'needs.
There is no doubt that anthropologistsand linguistsneed to be critical of their
own ways, and that they should not wait until they come under fire from the native
populationsfor massivepillageof culturalvalues(not to speakof the other valuesthat
often were the motivesbehindthe'anthros'penetration into uncharted,but presumably
exploitable territory). Clearly, the future of anthropology and linguistics as social
sciencesdepends on the degree to which we can manage to become critical of
ourselves:"not only natives questioninganthropologistsbut anthropologistsseriously
questioning each others' wisdom", as Bion Griffin remarked recently, ir propos the
SeventhConferenceon Hunting and GatheringSocieties(CHAGS) in Moscow,August
1993 (1994: 12).
But not only do we have a problem communicatingwith people from other
cultures,and working with them on an equal basis,there is also the questionof our
communicationwith thosewho come after us.Traditionally,knowledgehasbeen passed
on from generationto generationby word of mouth or by written documents.Most of
the time, the continuing'handing over' of knowledgeand wisdom has prevented such
informationfrom gettinglost,at leastin recenttimes.But this 'tradition'may well not
be sufficient to handle future communicationproblems.While we cannot say much
about communicationas regardsour future in a broader sense,and cannot too easily
predict what kinds of problems posteritywill encounterin this respect (the explosive
growth of communicationdevicesand techniquesover the past decadesmay well lure
us into a pretty sanguineview on this), it is our duty at leastto try and think about how
we can communicate with people millennia ahead of us about the problems that
alreadyare here, and are here to stay.
One linguist who has given this crux of the future some thought is Roland
Posner(1990;seealsoMey 1994).He squarelyputsthe questionon the agendaof how
to relay crucial information concerningnuclearwasteand its disposalto a generation
of humzrnswhose languagewe don't even know. Most radioactivematerial will still be
dangeroustens of thousandsof years trom today; but if we look at what means of
communication(such as, presumably,spoken languages)were used tens of thousands
of years ago, and then turn this retrojection into a projection, the result is not
encouragingfor any future understanding.Still, the questionremains:how can we tell
those that come after us what we know now, in a fashionthat they will understandthen,
so as to know how to avoid the traps that lack of knowledgewill set?
Many will say that such a venture is preposterous,even futile, sincewe cannot
possiblypredict what future generationsof humankindare going to be like, let alone
what they will need in the nature of informationalinput. Imagine us giving advice as
i
t
A soaal pragntatics for survival 259

to how to deal with problemsthat will arise in upcomingmillennia,when we are not


evenable to deal with our own!
But even if one concedesthis point, the matters touched upon here remain
eminently pragmoticin nature:that is, in dealingwith them we are not only or mainly
concerned with the nature of the information as such,but first and foremost with how
to get it acrossto future users.We will have to speakto them in a languagethat they
will understand,in a way that will prevent their safety and well-being from being
jeopardized by the lastingeffectsof our actions.
A pragmaticlook at future communication will not just concentrateon language
'sign
as an abstractsystemof signs,on the individuallanguagesas collectionsof
bearers' or'sign makers'(the originalmeaningof the Latin term significetts, that which
laterbecamenarroweddown to Saussure's'signifiart/'), but will respectlanguagesas the
bearersof communication, of culture,of silciety,indeedeven of human life itself;the
pragmaticsof the future will be a socialpragmaticsfor human survival.

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