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Summary
1.
Introduction
2.
Pragmatics
3. The
pragmatics of Catalan
3.1
The beginnings
3.2
Expansion
3.3
Consolidation?
4.
Bibliography
1.
Introduction
This article
sets out to present a chronological portrait of the adoption of the pragmatic perspective
in the field of research into the Catalan language. More specifically, our intention here
is to show how the concept of pragmatics in this area has evolved and what was the process
of its institutionalisation since the beginnings around 1980, until the present time.
Here, we will not be concerned with giving an overall review of the objectives of
pragmatic research into Catalan, which will be treated in another work (Alturo,
forthcoming). (1)
In the
following sections, we distinguish stages or phases in the development of Catalan
pragmatics: the beginnings (section 3.1), which we situate in the eighties, the
expansion (section 3.2), which occurred during the nineties, and now a third stage
which, we hope, is a one of consolidation (section 3.3), which began around 2001.
This chronological portrait of the field is preceded by a brief definition of the concept
of pragmatics, upon which this article is founded (section 2).
2.
Pragmatics
The articles
that make up this monographic issue present pragmatics as a many faceted discipline,
founded on independent areas of study (philosophy, sociology and psychological, cognitive,
linguistic and literary anthropology) and this has lead to certain authors describing it
as an "interdisciplinary perspective on the use of language resources in human
communication" (Haberland and Mey 1977, Reyes 1990, Verschueren 1999). Pragmatics,
understood in a wider sense, is a frontier discipline, which shares both the goal of
systematisation typical of the linguistics of resources and the open humanist spirit of
interdisciplinary research on language.
The logical
consequence of this conception of pragmatics is the necessary acceptance of theoretical
and methodological pluralism, limited by just three basic conditions:
1. Pragmatics
is a scientific discipline, and assumes that language use is systematic and can be
observed, described and ultimately explained. This means, obviously, that it cannot be
prescriptive or normative. The function of the pragmatist is not to shape and dictate the
rules of linguistic behaviour, but rather to discover the laws and principles that govern
this behaviour. This fact, clearly, in no way denies the importance of the scientific
analysis of standard language in the framework of studies on intralinguistic variation,
nor the application of such to different fields (for example, language teaching).
2. Given that
pragmatics investigates language as a variety of behaviour, or studies it in relation to
human behaviour generally, only the data that reflects this behaviour should be accepted
as empirically valid evidence.
3. Linguistic
activity is of interest only to the extent that it relates to the meaning that it has for
the people who are involved. In this respect, the empirical orientation which is adopted
has to enable analysis of meaning in relation to the processes of production and
interpretation.
Apart from
these basic requisites, pragmatic research should be able to bring together and integrate
empirical evidence of the cultural, social and psychological dimensions of language use.
This, however, is little more than a theoretical ideal, even today, despite the
integrating forces that have repeatedly been in play since the discipline's first
beginnings. And in fact, compliance with the basic requisites stated above is not, nor has
been in the past, a constant in pragmatics research, particularly where "real"
data is concerned. As a number of authors have emphasised (Reyes 1990: 35, Salvador 1997:
206), the philosophic origins of pragmatics and its intimate relationship to semantics
have, often, encouraged research based on materials constructed by linguistics, with
sentences taken out of context. A classic example of this is the work on speech acts and
inferences, which while constituting a fundamental part of the study of meaning in
context, has traditionally used isolated, artificially contrived phrases as data.
Nonetheless, pragmatics has evolved toward more empirical techniques of investigation, in
part as a consequence of its intimate relationship with disciplines which
"avoid" the idealisation of the object of study, above all sociolinguistics and
psycholinguistics, and in part thanks to technological advances, which have made it
feasible to process large corpora consisting of real oral and written language.
3. The pragmatics of Catalan (2)
As is the case
with general pragmatics, Catalan pragmatics emerged and took shape out of different
traditions which converged (or are converging) on interest in language use. Thus pragmatic
studies on Catalan have tended come to us by way of sociolinguistics, general linguistics,
descriptive grammar, stylistics, applied linguistics... What studies in such disciplines
have in common, what makes them of interest to us in this article, is that, like the
pragmatics described in the previous section, they offer an interdisciplinary perspective
on language use. To speak, then, of Catalan pragmatics is not to speak of an autonomous
discipline, with theoretical and methodological components well defined and clearly
differentiated from other disciplines, but rather to speak of studies of the Catalan
language incorporating the interdisciplinary view of the processes of language use,
together with the systematic description of different linguistic levels of Catalan.
In this
section, then, we show how interest in the processes the language use, and their effect on
linguistic structures, have continued to extend and grow within the framework of Catalan
language studies. We will look at considerations relating to the focus of the research,
the wish to compile and disseminate interest in language use, the introduction of
pragmatics into university programmes, the increasing number of publications in Catalan on
pragmatics issues, etc.
3.1
The beginnings
Catalan
scholarly interest in the area of pragmatics, as we have already mentioned, did not begin
until the eighties. It is true that there were authors before that who were interested in
variation in language use covarying with context (among others, López del Castillo 1976,
Vallverdú 1968, Coromines 1971, Eberenz-Greoles 1979, Vinyoles 1978, or indeed the much
earlier precedent, Calveras 1925, revindicated by Aracil 1983: 102), but these were
isolated pieces of work, not part of a generalised move to open up to new trends, trends
which were ushering in pragmatics on the international scene. Catalan sociolinguistics,
which could have constituted the entering wedge for activity converging on pragmatics, was
simply too busy, during the long period of the Franco regime, speaking out against the
political and cultural situation of the Catalan language. Furthermore, Catalan linguistics
kept firmly within the descriptive and normative tradition which prevailed in the
Philology faculties of Spanish universities and only very gradually began to open up to
other approaches.
In the
eighties, this situation changed. A sociolinguist, Aracil, began to lecture at universal
level on questions of linguistic variation conditioned by context. (3) At the same time, other language
specialists began to be interested things pragmatic and published writings which were to
be of key importance in the subsequent development of the discipline: Serrano (1980),
Rigau (1981), Payrató (1988) and Salvador (1984a, 1984b). The work carried
out by these authors, alongside that of Aracil and the various researchers who produced
short empirical or theoretical studies on pragmatic-related issues (Calsamiglia and Tuson
1980, Marí 1983, Cabré 1984), or dissertations (Viana 1983, Conca 1985) and doctoral
theses (Espinal 1985, (4) Bassols 1988), (5) all opened up Catalan linguistics
to the different currents and trends of the discipline. Apart from these individuals,
mention should be made of the journal Límits, as well as the organisation of the
first groups and seminars focussing on the sort of issues discussed here (the Seminari de
Sociolingüística de Barcelona (Barcelona Sociolinguistics Seminary), promoted by Aracil;
the setting up of the Cercle dAnàlisi del Discurs (Discourse Analysis Circle), not
officially known by that name until 1991; and the holding of certain seminars on textual
analysis in Valencia and Lleida, etc.).
The plurality
of perspectives coexisting on the international scene had the effect of fostering, among
Catalan researchers, new interest in the nature and name of a new discipline that set out
to increase awareness of language use from an interdisciplinary perspective (Rigau 1981,
Aracil 1982a, 1983, Serrano 1980, 1982, Salvador 1984c, 1990, Cabré 1984,
Viana 1986, Payrató 1988). Aracil, as a sociolinguist and Rigau, as a linguist, at that
moment represented the two poles of a movement, an opening up to new international trends
which would lead to the institutionalisation of pragmatics. (6)
In an article
written in 1978, and published for the first time in 1982, Aracil presented some of the
traditions which make up modern pragmatics: the studies on English-language and French
language discourse, Hymes' Ethnography of speaking, Halliday's functionalism, Kaplan's
comparative rhetoric, Austin's and Searle's philosophy of language, Bernstein's work on
elaborated and restricted codes, as well as the sociology of everyday life and common
sense (Shutz, Berger) ethnomethodology (Cicourel, Garfinkel, Goffman). For Aracil, these
research approaches would contribute to the emerging of a new autonomous discipline
("new" in Catalan linguistics, that is) that would be concerned with linguistic
usage (language use) in different communicative settings and which would have the
discourse or text as the basic working unit. Aracil's article provoked a debate in which
at least three other scholars participate: Salvador (1984a,c), Viana (1986) and
Payrató (1988). Salvador (1984a,c) expressed his general agreement with the
proposals put forward by Aracil and suggested that these could be the basis of a new
epistemological area: sociolinguistics, semiotics, the philosophy of language, text
linguistics and literary theory. Salvador presented the field with an interdisciplinary
"programme" and refrained from making any suggestion about what the area should
be called, although he did express his own personal liking for the term stylistics,
the term which Aracil had proposed. Viana (1986) took up the thread of discourse first
isolated by Aracil and Salvador and showed the effectiveness of recourse to pragmatics to
make sense of the interpretative aspects of discourse. Two terms appeared in this work
which subsequently came to be most used in the field of Catalan research, to refer to the
area of pragmatics (or at least to one of the possible approaches to this area): pragmatics
and discourse analysis. Payrató (1988: 14), lastly, reviewed the ideas of Aracil,
Salvador and Viana and called for a discipline "straddling pragmatics and
sociolinguistics". (7) At the same time that Aracil was
expressing the need for an interdisciplinary perspective on language use, a work appeared
which paved the way for functional and anthropological approaches to pragmatics: Signes,
llengua i cultura (Serrano 1980), a personal view of Catalan culture seen from the
semiotics paradigm, with elements drawn from studies on non-verbal communication.
In 1981 Rigau
published Gramàtica del discurs, a revised version of her doctoral thesis (1979, Aspectes
duna gramàtica generativa del discurs o text). In this book, which could be
considered the work which began a more linguistic orientation within Catalan linguistics,
Rigau produced a synthesis of the most significant terms and the theories in the field of
text grammars. She noted the need to describe and explain from several different angles to
be able to arrive at a theory of discourse which could be formalised. Two aspects of this
work are particularly noteworthy: in the first place the positive evaluation made of
generative semantics, which reflect the fact that on the international level there was an
opening up, a readiness to consider text and other disciplines from the more orthodox
positions of formal syntax and semantics; secondly, the presentation of the speech act
theory of Austin and Searle and, for the first time in Catalan, a treatment of Grice's
conversational maxims. Three years later, Cabré (1984) presented her ideas on the general
area of discourse analysis which linked up with the work of Rigau. Cabré delegated to
pragmatics the more linguistic aspects of the investigation of languages in context. She
then situated fairly and squarely within the ambit of discourse analysis a good part of
the trends and focuses (including from within linguistics) which, from the wider
perspective of pragmatics as described earlier, fit into the process by which this
discipline came into being. The latter include Harris's discourse, Benviniste's utterance
theory (enonciation), Austin and Searle's speech act theory, Foucault and Pêcheux
(etc.) and their theory of ideologies. This work contributed to the diffusion of
linguistic and philosophic models which had already been presented by Rigau, and to which
was added the theory of ideologies and a reference to sociolinguistics models.
3.2
Expansion
The decade of
the nineties was the period of expansion of pragmatics studies in Catalan language
research. In 1990, two facts marked the beginning of this new stage: (a) the
publication of a monographic issue of the journal Caplletra on "Discourse
analysis", which had actually been compiled and edited towards the end of 1989, and (b)
the celebration, in Barcelona, of the third conference of the International Pragmatics
Association (IPrA). As a result of these events, the research, the teaching programmes,
research publications, the setting up of groups and the organisation of activities (series
of talks, seminars...) all with a pragmatics orientation, grew progressively.
Caplletra's
monographic issue served to present some of the basic concepts of the analysis of
discourse (Salvador), linguistic pragmatics (Bassols) and conversational analysis (Cots,
Nussbaum, Payrató and Tuson), at the same time as there was an exploration of certain
connections between syntax and discourse (Viana, Cuenca) and between language and
literature (Conca and Carbó). The third IPrA conference had substantial repercussions on
the institutionalisation of Catalan pragmatics. Here for the first time scholars of
Catalan came together from such diverse areas of interest as pragmatics, conversation and
discourse. It was also a real opportunity to participate directly in the formation of a
relatively incipient field (recall that this was the third conference). |