Crystal.The Functions of Language p10_13

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4 · THE FUNCTIONS

The question 'Why do we use language?' seems hardly to require an answer. But, as is often the way with linguistic questions, our everyday familiarity with speech and writing can make it difficult to appreciate the complexity of the skills we have learned. This is particularly so when we try to define the range of functions to which language can be put. 'To communicate our ideas' is the usual answer to the question - and, indeed, this must surely be the most widely recognized function of language. Whenever we tell people about ourselves or our circumstances, or ask for information about other selves and circumstances, we are using language in order to exchange facts and opinions. The use of language is often called 'referential', 'propositional', or 'ideational'. It is the kind of language which will be found throughout this encyclopedia - and in any spoken or written interaction where people wish to learn from each other. But it would be wrong to. think of it as the only way in which we use language. Language scholars have identified several other functions where. the communication of ideas is a marginal or irrelevant consideration.

EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION Mr X carefully leans his walking stick against a wall, but ii:falls over. He tries again, and it falls a second time. Mr X roundly curses the walking stick. How should we classify this function oflanguage? It cannot be 'communication of ideas', for there is no-one else in the room. Here we have one of the commonest uses oflanguage - a means of getting rid of our nervous energy when we are under stress. It is the clearest case of what is often called an 'emotive' or 'expressive' function oflanguage. Emotive language can be used whether or not we are alone. Swear words and obscenities are probably the commonest signals to be used in this way, especially when we are in an angry or frustrated state (p. 61). But there are also many emotive utterances of a positive kind, such as our involuntary verbal reactions to beautiful art or scenery, our expression of fear and affection, and the emotional outpourings of certain kinds of poetry. The most common linguistic expressions of emotion consist of conventional words or phrases (such as Gosh, My, Darn it, and What a sight) and the semi-linguistic noises often called interjections (such as Tut-tut, Ugh, Wow, Ow, and Ouch). Also, an important function of the prosody of language (§29) is to provide an outlet

OF LANGUAGE

for our attitudes while we speak. At a more sophisticated level, there are many literary devices of grammar and vocabulary which convey the writer's feelings (§12). However, in these more complex cases it becomes difficult to distinguish the emotional function of language from the 'ideational' function described above.

SOCIAL INTERACTION Mrs P sneezes violently. Mrs Q says 'Bless you!' Mrs P says Thank you.' Again, this hardly seems to be a case of language being used to communicate ideas, but rather to maintain a comfortable relationship between people. Its sole function is to provide a means of avoiding a situation which both parties might otherwise find embarrassing. No factual content is involved. Similarly, the use of such phrases as Good morningor Pleased to meet you, and ritual exchanges about health or the weather, do not 'communicate ideas' in the usual sense. Sentences of this kind are usually automatically produced, and stereotyped in structure. They often state the obvious (e.g. Lovely day) or have no content at all (e.g. Hello). They certainly require a special kind of explanation, and this is found in the idea that language is here being used for the purpose of maintaining rappon between people. The anthropologist Bronisl:aw Malinowski (1884-1942) coined the phrase 'phatic communion' to refer to this social function of language, which arises out of the basic human need to signal friendship - or, at least, lack of enmity. For someone to withhold these sentences when they are expected, by staying silent, is a sure sign of distance, alienation, even danger. These illustrations apply to English and to many European languages. But cultures vary greatly in the topics which they permit as phatic communion. The weather is not as universal a conversation-filler as the English might like to think! For example, Rundi SNEEZING IN TONGA When someone sneezes, the English stock response is Bless you. But there is no equivalent to such forms in many languages, and any remarks which might be made can have a totally different meaning and function. In German, one says Gesundheit ('health '); in Mende (Sierra Leone), the

word to use is biseh ('thank you'); in Bembe (Congo), it is kuma ('be well'); and in Malagasy, it is velona ('alive'). In Tonga, a sneeze is often taken to be a sign that your loved one is missing you. It is quite common for someone to say jokingly, after a sneeze, Ikai ke nofo noa mua! -literally, 'Not to

be nothing, alas.' The sense intended isthatthe loved one who has 'caused' the sneeze should be thinking about nothing, instead of about the one who has sneezed. A major difference with English is that the person who has sneezed may utter the phrase - a kind of Bless me!

4 . THE

women (in Burundi, Central Africa), upon taking leave, are quite often heard to say, routinely and politely, 'I must go home now, or my husband will beat me.' Moreover, phatic communion itself is far from universal: some cultures say little, and prefer silence, as in the case of the Paliyans of southern India, or the Aritama of Columbia.

THE POWER OF SOUND In 1952, children skipping in a school playground were heard to chant: 'Shirley Oneple, Shirley Twople, Shirley Threeple ...' and so on up to 'Shirley Tenple' (i.e. Temple). The instance was recorded by Iona and Peter Opie in The Lore and Language a/Schoolchildren (1959), and it clearly illustrates the 'phonetic' character of children's rhymes and games. It is largely nonsense, and yet it performs an important function: the repetitive rhythms help to control the game, and the children plainly take great delight in it. There are many situations where the only apparent reason for a use oflanguage is the effect the sounds have on the users or listeners. We can group together here such different cases as the rhythmical litanies of religious groups, the persuasive cadences of political speechmaking, the dialogue chants used by prisoners or slaves as they work, the various kinds of language games played by children and adults (p. 59), and the

FUNCTIONS

11

OF LANGUAGE

voices of individuals singing in the kitchen or the bath. Perhaps the clearest casesare the lyrics of popular songs and the range of phonetic effects which can be encountered in poetry. Unintelligible words and phrases are commonplace in the oral poetry of many languages, and can be explained only by a universal desire to exploit the sonic potential oflanguage. SPEAKING IN TONGUES paka bante rine sokuntare mare paka tore moti shalara tamere pakashara merime ... This is part of an utterance which occurred spontaneously at a religious service. It displays the repetitive, reduced range of syllabic and rhythmic patterns typical of tonguespeaking, or glossolalia - a widespread phenomenon within the Pentecostal tradition of Protestantism and charismatic Roman Catholitism. Though many glossolalists believe they are speaking a real but unknown language, the utterance patterns are quite unlike ordinary language: the

sounds are simpler and more repetitive; there are few predictable structural units; and there is no systematic word- or sentence-meaning. When asked, glossolalists are usually unable to repeat utterances exactly, or give a detailed account of their meaning. Glossolalic speech is interpreted in a general way. To speak in tongues is taken as a sign of the sincerity of a person's belief, or as evidence of conversion. The speakers treat it as a highly significant, emotional event, which reflects their new-found sense of the presence of God. In this respect, the phenomenon (or its written equivalent,

GRAPHIC POWER

glossographia)

must be classed along with other cases of functional pseudolinguistic behaviour, such as jazz 'scat' singing. Glossolalia needs to be distinguished from cases of xenoglossia, where people miraculously speak a language they have not previously learned or heard. Claims for such cases are rare, difficult to prove (e.g. to rule out the possibility that the speaker heard the language as a child), and usually turn outto involve chance effects - as when a few syllables happen to resemble a sequence in some language.

ICELANDIC NAMES La

mandoline

"(Billet et le bambou

The names of dwarfs in the 13th-century Icelandic Edda are like a painting in sound. A few ofthe names resemble words in the language, but most have no meaning. (0 and p are the th sound in this and thin respectively.) Nyi ok Ni5i, Norori, Suori, Austri, Vestri, AI pj6fr, Dvalinn, Nar ok Nainn, Nipingr, uainn, Bifurr, Bofurr, Bojnburr, N6ri,

Ori. Onarr; Oinn, MjoijlVitnir, Viggr ok Gandalfr, Vindalfr, porinn, Fili, Kili, Fundinn, Vali, pr6r, pr6inn, pekkr, Litr ok Vitr, Nyr, Nyraor, Rekkr, Radsivior.

'I like coffee, Ilike tea, Ilike radio, and TV ...' ~ a typical ball-bouncing rnonoloque

Writing and print can exercise a purely visual effect upon the reader, over and above the linguistic content of the words (§32). This is best illustrated in poetry where the shape of the poem reflects its subject matter - as in this poem from Guillaume Apollinaire's Calligrammes (1918), showing a mandolin, a bamboo stick, and a flower.

PART

12

I . POPULAR

THE CONTROL OF REALITY In the northern borderland of Nigeria, an Igbo man invokes the spirit powers in his ancestral prayers, using a formulaic curse: Ku/o, unu, kwosi okiro! ('Wash, all of you, wash down upon all of our enemies!'). In an English church, a priest holds a baby over a font, and pours water on its head, saying 1 baptize you ....

'Devil dancer'

performing

~ healing

ritual in Matara,

Sri Lanka

All forms of supernatural belief involve the use of language as a mea~s of controlling the forces which the believers feel affect their lives. The various prayers and formulae which are directed at God, gods, devils, spirits, objects, and other physical forces are always highly distinctive forms of language (p. 388). In some cases, the language might be regarded as a form of ideational communication, with a supernatural being as the recipient - but if so, it is a somewhat abnormal type of communication, for the response is usually appreciated only in the mind or behaviour of the speaker, and there may be no evident response at all. In other cases, the function of the language is to control matter, or the reality which the matter is supposed to represent. For example, the gardening ritual of the Trobriand Islanders involves a series offormulae which 'charm' the axes, making them effective tools. At a Roman Catholic Mass, the speaking of the words. This is my body is believed to identify the moment when the communion bread is changed into the body of Christ. Several other situations, apart from the magical and the religious, illustrate this 'performative' function of language - such as the words which name a ship at a launching ceremony.

IDEAS

ABOUT

LANGUAGE

RECORDING

THE FACTS

A solicitor, preparing a case for a client, pulls down an old book of judgments from the shelf, and reads a report of a case which took place 25 years ago. What use oflanguage is this? At first sight, it would appear to be 'ideational'; but the situation in which the comrnumcanon takes place is quite different in several respects. When information is stored for future use, it is impossible to predict who is likely to use it - indeed, much of the material may never be referred to again. There is therefore no 'dialogue' element in the communication. The information has to be as self-contained as possible, for it is impossible to predict the demands which may one day be made upon it, and in most cases there is no way in which the user can respond so as to influence the writer. Accordingly, when language is used for the purposes of recording facts, it is very different from that used in everyday conversation - in particular, it displays a much greater degree of organization, impersonality, and explicitness. This function oflanguage is represented by all kinds of record-keeping, such as historical records, geographical surveys, business accounts, scientific reports, parliamentary acts, and .public databanks. It is an essential domain oflanguage use, for the availability of this material guarantees the knowledge-base of subsequent generations, which is a prerequisite of social development. THE DOMESDAY

BOOK

The two volumes which comprise Domesday Book This was the summarizing record of William l's survey of England, which was carried out in 1086. The smaller volume contains all the information returned about Essex,

Norfolk, and Suffolk; the larger volume contains the abbreviated account of all other counties surveyed (the whole of England except some of the most northerly areas). The 'onceand-for-all' function of this

kind of language is well symbolized by the popular label for the books, 'Domesday', which came tl be widely used by the 12tr century. From this record there would be no appeal:

4 . THE

THE INSTRUMENT THOUGHT

OF

A woman sits ~one at a workbench, staring ~t a piece of quipment wtth a puzzled frown. She says: So IfI put e d four there, and link it to blue three, that'll leave ~~uesix free. Then I can use that for green four. Right.' She sets to work. People often feel the need to speak their thoughts aloud. If asked why they do it, they reply that it helps their concentration. Authors often make similar remarks about the need to get a first draft down on paper, in order to see whether what they have written corresponds to what they had in mind. The French thinker, Joseph Joubert (1754-1824), once said: 'We only know just what we meant to say after we have said it.' Perhaps the most common use of language as an instrument of thought is found when people perform mathematical calculations 'in their head'. Very often, this supposedly 'mental' act is accompanied by a verbal commentary. However, it is not essential that language used in this way should alwaysbe spoken aloud or written down. Often, people can be seen to move their lips while they are thinking, but no actual sound emerges. Language is evidently present, but in a 'sub-vocal' form. Several theories have been proposed concerning the role of language as the instrument of thought - notably that of the Russian psychologist, Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (1896-1934), who argued for a concept of 'inner speech', a mental use ofwords to evokea sequence of thoughts. Does all thought, then, require language? This complex question will be reviewed in §5.

THE EXPRESSION OF IDENTITY The crowds attending President Reagan's pre-election meetings in 1984 repeatedly shouted in unison 'Four more years!'What kind oflanguage is this? Such language is hardly informative to those who use it, but it plainly has an important role in fostering a sense of identity - in this case, among those who share the same political views. Many social situations display language which unites rather than informs - the chanting of a crowd at a football match, the shouting of names or slogans at public meetings, the stage-filanaged audience reactions to television game shows, or the shouts of affirmation at some religious meetings. Our use of language can tell our listener or reader a great deal about ourselves - in particular, about our regional origins, social background, level of education, occupation, age, sex, and personality. The way language is used to express these variables is so complex that it requires separate discussion (§§6-12), but the general point can be made here, that a major function oflanguage is the expression of personal identity - the signalling of who we are and where we 'belong'.

FUNCTIONS

13

OF LANGUAGE

These signals enter into the whole of our linguistic behaviour, so much so that it is often a problem distinguishing the identifying function of language from that used for the communication of ideas. In a public meeting, for instance, Mr A may make a speech in support of Mr B, and it may be difficult to decide whether the reason for his speech is to make a fresh point, or simply to demonstrate to all concerned that A is on B's side. The arena of political debate is full of such manoeuvrings, as individuals strive to express their solidarity with (or distance from) each other. There are two kinds of mental calculating prodigies: those who 'hear' numbers and those who 'see' them. Both rely on some kind of 'inner' language, especially when faced with a complex problem. Inaudi was one of the great 'auditory' calculators. Though he did not learn to read or write until he was 20, by the age of 7 he was able to multiply two 5-digit numbers in his head. When he was studied by the psychologist Alfred Binet in 1894, Inaudi's auditory techniques clearly emerged - in his own words, 'I hear numbers ... resound in my ear, in the

Jacques Inaudi

(1867-1950)

way I pronounce them, with the sound of my own voice, and this interior audition stays with me a good part of the day.' In observing him perform on stage, he was usually seen to move his lips or mutter, and he often accompanied this by exaggerated gestures and pacing. An interesting parallel is sometimes drawn between prodigious calculating abilities and language. Are these mental feats very far removed from our impressive everyday generative ability (§16) to manipulate the complex structure of a vast range of novel sentences?

GRAPHIC IDENTITY The characteristic typefaces of several British newspapers provide an illustration of identity using the graphic medium (p. 187). These examples are all taken from the Guardian's spoof edition of 1 April 1978, in which newsfrom the fictitious island of San Serriffe was presented in a series of typical formats and language styles lampooning actual British newspapers ofthe time. The joke relies totally on the reader being able to identify these formats immediately, using a mixture of typographic and linguistic cues.

SA" SERRlfFE'$

..... ,

s,.",,,!.,,t,p.jI119r5

BIGGESr

DAilY

SALE

THE SS TIMES

ss GUARDIAN Printed

in Metro

and lometimes

·8odoni

Saturday April 1 1978