f.i)Tannen’s “Relative Focus on Involvement”

f.i)Tannen’s “Relative Focus on Involvement”

f.i.1Contextualization Hypothesis

Tannen continues with explaining her contextualization hypothesis by focusing on written discourse. Contrary to spoken discourse, writers and readers are separated in time and place, thus the common context of immediate situation is missing. Consequently, requesting the explanation in case of the reader’s confusion is impossible, and that is why the writer should predict potential confusion of the readers and provide them with the background information needed. As for the common social background, the writer and the reader will probably not share it to the same extent as the speaker and the hearer. Tannen suggests that the writer can “make fewer assumptions about shared attitudes and beliefs” (1985:128).

Tannen also discusses the claim of some scholars that written discourse is “decontextualized”. She contradicts this assumption by stating that “no piece of discourse can be understood without prior knowledge of many kinds of contexts” (1985:128). As already briefly mentioned in Section 2.3.1, this study of involvement in political interviews proves that any analysis is insufficient without taking into account the context since particular linguistic means may have different functions in different contexts. Studies that do not pay sufficient attention to the context are rather superficial and partial, and may produce misleading interpretation of the results. Some scholars (cf. Cameron et al. 1988; Crosby and Nyquist 1977) take over Lakoff’s findings about hedges (Lakoff 1972) uncritically, without noticing that, for instance, I think may function as a booster in some contexts as well. This analysis distinguishes the different pragmatic functions of I think and reveals that its use as a booster prevails over the pragmatic function of a hedge in the corpus of political interviews (see Chapter 7.3.2).

When explaining her contextualization hypothesis and comparing spoken and written discourse, Tannen asserts that in the genre of face-to-face conversation the act of speaking itself is more important than the message conveyed. However, this claim is not new. As already mentioned above (see Chapter 2.3), Malinowski (2006 [1926]) defined the term “phatic communion”, which does not have the function of communicating ideas but, rather, it “serves to establish bonds of personal union between people brought together by the mere need of companionship” (2006 [1926]:298). It should be pointed out here that maintaining social contact belongs to typical aspects of interactional involvement. This thesis will show that political discourse is a high-involved discourse since politicians concentrate not only on passing on information but also on establishing contact with their audience. Their language also contains features of informal language since they want to use a language similar to that used by their audience and thus to create the impression of being closer to them. If politicians were detached and reserved in their attitude to their listeners, they would not be trusted by them and could not persuade anyone about their trustworthiness.

Tannen emphasizes that it would be false to think that the utterances in informal face-to-face conversation are not important. By contrast, they convey “metamessages”, which are “statements about the relationship between interactants” that are an important base of any interaction (Tannen 1985:128); among the typical examples of metamessages are utterances such as “I am [or am not] well disposed toward you”, “I’m teasing you”, etc. (1985:128). Additionally, Tannen adds that if we have a close and personal relationship with our conversational partner, it is difficult to concentrate solely on conveying information because the conversationalists cannot ignore the significance of their relationship (1985:129). The present analysis shows that this importance of expressing mutuality rather than matter-of-factness is not typical of the genre of political interview, owing to the very nature of this genre. It is a formal interaction where the distribution of roles is asymmetrical and the relationship between participants is not personal. Moreover, the purpose of a political interview differs significantly from that of an informal conversation. Primarily, it should convey information about various current affairs to the public. A more detailed description of the genre of political interview will be offered be found in Chapter 3.

In the genre of face-to-face conversation there is another interesting phenomenon which Tannen refers to (1985:129). It is connected with the technological advancement of the present-day society. A technologically advanced society is in the constant need of communication that should be quick and efficient. Any degree of interpersonal involvement would slow down the communicative act, and that is why it is conventionally ignored, typically among strangers. For this reason, this type of involvement cannot be found in political discourse. Politicians show a different type of involvement which is connected with the expression of their attitude to the proposition, and in this way they want to influence the opinion of their potential voters. As Tannen puts it, such conventional ignoring of interpersonal involvement may, however, be perceived as distinctively Western. Then it can be the cause of misunderstandings and confusion when American businessmen get right down to business without establishing personal relationships with their, for instance, Japanese or Arab counterparts.

It cannot be explicitly said that written discourse is focused exclusively on conveying information and spoken discourse concentrates on conveying attitudes and feelings, and thus spoken discourse shows a high degree of involvement and written discourse the contrary. As Tannen emphasizes “it is common to have written communication in which it hardly matters what the content is; the fact of communication is paramount - for example, in some personal letters” (1985:129). Correspondingly, it is possible to have “communication that is message-focused in an oral mode, as in lectures and radio or television broadcasts” (1985:129-130).

Tannen concludes her observations on the contextualization hypothesis by stating that an essential aspect distinguishing discourse types is “whether it is one-way or two-way communication” (1985:130) and this aspect is connected with relative focus on involvement and with relative focus on information.

f.i.2Cohesion Hypothesis

In contrast to speaking, in written discourse the authors cannot rely on nonverbal and paralinguistic cues. Instead, they make use of devices such as italics, underlining, the use of bold and capital letters, Tannen (1985:131) claims. Consequently, the writer’s attitude towards ideas expressed and relationships between them must be “lexicalized”. This is usually achieved in a variety of ways: by using explicit statement, such as in a humorous way... or I don’t mean this literally (1985:131), by careful selection of words with the right connotations, or by using “complex syntactic constructions and transitional phrases” (1985:131).

Tannen summarizes her findings by stating that the type of discourse where “meaning and attitudes are expressed paralinguistically, nonverbally, or indirectly” (1985:131), i.e. one characteristically using strategies of face-to-face conversation which build on interpersonal involvement, is spoken discourse. In turn, “discourse that relies on lexicalization of meaning and relationships between propositions either is written or uses strategies that are frequently found in written discourse” (Tannen 1985:131). It is possible, however, that the writer may aim at creating the effect of face-to-face interaction, thus, he incorporates such comments as “She said with a wink” (Tannen 1985:131).