Mitigation 0080443346, 9780080443348

Table of contents :
Front Cover......Page 1
Mitigation......Page 4
Copyright Page......Page 5
Table of Contents......Page 10
Acknowledgments......Page 16
Foreword......Page 18
Presentation of the corpus......Page 20
Structure of the book......Page 22
List of abbreviations......Page 26
List of metalinguistic abbreviations......Page 27
Glossary......Page 28
1.0. Foreword......Page 30
1.1. Towards a psychostylistics of interaction......Page 32
1.2. A ‘loaded’ discipline......Page 38
1.3.1. The instance d’énonciation (Benveniste, 1966)......Page 41
1.3.2. The deictic origin (Bühler, 1934)......Page 42
1.3.3. The egocentric child (Piaget, 1989 [1926])......Page 43
1.4. A complex subjectivity......Page 45
1.5. Stylistic markers......Page 46
1.6. Semiotic markers......Page 52
1.7. The function of identity maintenance and ‘speech markers’ (Giles et al., 1979)......Page 53
1.8. Contextualizations cues (Gumperz, 1982a)......Page 55
1.9. Mitigation: first definitions......Page 57
1.10. Bridging the gap between linguistic pragmatics and self-psychology......Page 60
2.0.1. Structure of the chapter......Page 64
2.0.2. Scopes of mitigating devices......Page 66
2.1.1. Mitigation in different research areas: the empirical turn......Page 68
2.1.2. Hedges in Brown and Levinson (1987)......Page 70
2.1.3.1. Lakoff (1972)......Page 73
2.1.3.2. Bourdieu (1982)......Page 77
2.1.4.1. Fraser (1975)......Page 78
2.1.4.2. Leech (1983)......Page 80
2.1.4.3. Holmes (1984)......Page 81
2.1.6. Mitigation as removal of unwelcome perlocutionary effects (Fraser, 1980)......Page 83
2.1.7. Prince, Frader, and Bosk (1982)......Page 86
2.1.8. The notion of weakening (Abschwächung)......Page 87
2.1.8.1. Meyer-Hermann and Weingarten (1982)......Page 88
2.1.8.2. Langner (1994)......Page 89
2.2. Intensity......Page 90
2.2.1. Intensity according to Bally (1970 [1909])......Page 91
2.2.2. Intensity according to Strawson (1964)......Page 93
2.3.1. Some conceptual distinctions......Page 97
2.3.2. The multidisciplinary relevance of mitigation......Page 104
2.4. Conclusions......Page 106
3.0. Introduction......Page 108
3.1. Mitigation as a bridging category......Page 110
3.2. Types of mitigating devices (Habermas, 1987 [1981])......Page 112
3.3. The functioning of mitigation......Page 114
3.3.1. Bushes......Page 115
3.3.2. Hedges......Page 119
3.3.3. Combination of bushes and hedges......Page 121
3.3.4. Shields......Page 123
3.4. Other strategies of mitigation: quotational shields and topical shields......Page 131
3.5. Conclusions......Page 134
4.0. Introduction......Page 138
4.1. Style as a psycholinguistic issue: the role of emotion......Page 140
4.1.1. Mitigation as an empathic strategy: attunement (Stern, 1985)......Page 142
4.1.2. The other edge of the sword: mitigation as an anti-empathic strategy......Page 146
4.2. On the conceptualization of emotion in linguistic theories......Page 149
4.3. A folk psychological category: involvement......Page 153
4.4.1. Emotive communication and emotional communication......Page 155
4.4.2. The notion of emotive contrast......Page 156
4.4.3. Types of emotive devices......Page 158
4.4.4. Emotive closeness and distance: empathic deixis......Page 160
4.5. Immediacy (Wiener and Mehrabian, 1968)......Page 162
4.6. Equivocation (Beavin Bavelas, 1985; Beavin Bavelas et al., 1990)......Page 166
4.7.1. Haley (1959)......Page 167
4.7.2. Mitigation and diqualification......Page 169
4.8. Transactional disqualification (Sluzki et al., 1967)......Page 171
4.8.1. Types of transactional disqualification......Page 172
4.8.2. Reactive moves to transactional disqualification......Page 174
4.9. The Freudian concept of ‘undoing’ (Ungeschehenmachen)......Page 175
4.10. Conclusions......Page 176
5.0. Introduction......Page 178
5.1. Analysis of a dialogue at a primary care physician’s......Page 180
5.2. The broader summary of the encounter: the fabula......Page 182
5.2.1. The phases of the encounter......Page 184
5.2.2. The recurrent trend of the phases......Page 185
5.3. Between fabula and plot: salient moments of the encounter......Page 188
5.4. Muldimensional microanalysis of TR1: the plot......Page 193
5.5. The argumentative layer......Page 202
5.6. The illocutionary layer: overall illocutionary description of the phases......Page 203
5.7. Mitigation and institutional politeness in TR1......Page 206
5.8.1. Topical and stylistic non-attunement......Page 209
5.8.2. Micro-sequences of stylistic attunement......Page 212
5.9. Distribution of mitigators......Page 214
5.10. Mitigation and monitoring of emotive distances......Page 217
5.11. Co-variance among parameters......Page 219
5.12. Conclusions......Page 221
6.0. Introduction......Page 224
6.1. Preliminary questions......Page 226
6.2. Mitigation and institutional politeness......Page 229
6.3. Types of mitigation......Page 233
6.4. Between natural and non-natural mitigation: a transitional case......Page 234
6.5.1. Lenitive mitigation......Page 237
6.5.2. Tempering mitigation......Page 239
6.6.1. Linguistic means of lenitive mitigation......Page 243
6.6.1.1. Lenitive mitigation and deference......Page 253
6.6.1.2. Summary of linguistic means of lenitive mitigation......Page 255
6.6.1.3. Strategies of lenitive mitigation......Page 257
6.6.2. Linguistic means of tempering mitigation......Page 259
6.6.2.1. Prepositional phrases in tempering mitigation......Page 268
6.6.2.2. Summary of linguistic means of tempering mitigation......Page 271
6.7. Mitigation and felicity conditions (constitutive rules)......Page 272
6.7.2. Attenuation of compliance with preparatory rules......Page 273
6.7.4. Mitigation as side-effect of the reinforcement of the sincerity rule......Page 274
6.8. Conclusions: toward a pragmatic typology of mitigators......Page 276
Conclusions......Page 280
Bibliography......Page 290
Appendices......Page 316
Appendix A: TR1, Visit at a Primary Care Physician’s (Ch. 5)......Page 318
A) ‘Lenitive’ mitigation (directive acts)......Page 334
B) ‘Tempering’ mitigation (assertive-verdictive acts)......Page 337
C) Other types of mitigation (other acts)......Page 340
Name Index......Page 342
Subject Index......Page 350

Citation preview

MITIGATION

STUDIES IN PRAGMATICS General Editor: Bruce Fraser Associate Editors: Kerstin Fischer, Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen The Studies in Pragmatics series is dedicated to publishing innovative, authoritative monographs and edited collections from all micro-, macroand metapragmatic linguistic perspectives. Rooted in the interdisciplinary spirit of the Journal of Pragmatics, it welcomes not only book proposals from linguistics proper but also pragmatically-oriented proposals from neighboring disciplines such as interactional sociology, language philosophy, communication science, social psychology, cognitive science, and information science. The goal of the series is to provide a widely read and respected international forum for high quality theoretical, analytical, and applied pragmatic studies of all types. By publishing leading edge work on natural language practice, it seeks to extend our growing knowledge of the forms, functions, and foundations of human interaction.

Other titles in this series: FISCHER

Approaches to Discourse Particles

AIJMER & SIMONVANDENBERGEN

Pragmatic Markers in Contrast

FETZER & FISCHER

Lexical Markers of Common Grounds

Forthcoming: HABERLAND

Future Prospects for Pragmatics

Proposals for the series are welcome, please contact the General Editor, Bruce Fraser: [email protected]

MITIGATION

CLAUDIA CAFFI University of Genoa, Italy Department of Italian, Romance Languages, Humanities and Arts (DIRAS)

Amsterdam · Boston · Heidelberg · London · New York · Oxford Paris · San Diego · San Francisco · Singapore · Sydney · Tokyo

First edition 2007 Copyright © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier’s Science & Technology Rights Department in Oxford, UK: phone (+44) (0) 1865 843830; fax (+44) (0) 1865 853333; email: [email protected]. Alternatively you can submit your request online by visiting the Elsevier web site at http://elsevier.com/locate/permissions, and selecting Obtaining permission to use Elsevier material Notice No responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein. Because of rapid advances in the medical sciences, in particular, independent verification of diagnoses and drug dosages should be made British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

ISBN-13: 978-0-08-044334-8 ISBN-10: 0-08-044334-6 ISSN: 1750-368X For information on all Elsevier publications visit our website at books.elsevier.com Printed and bound in The Netherlands 07 08 09 10 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Studies in Pragmatics (SiP) General Editor Bruce Fraser Boston University, USA Associate Editors Kerstin Fischer University of Bremen, Germany Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen University of Copenhagen, Denmark Consulting Editor Jacob L. Mey University of Southern Denmark, Denmark Editorial Board Kent Bach, San Francisco State University, USA Diane Blakemore, University of Salford, UK Shoshana Blum-Kulka, Hebrew University, Israel Claudia Caffi, University of Genoa, Italy Alessandro Duranti, UCLA, USA Marjorie Goodwin, UCLA, USA Hartmut Haberland, University of Roskilde, Denmark William F. Hanks, University of California, USA Sachiko Ide, Tokyo Women’s University, Japan Mikhail Ilyin, Moscow State Institute of International Relations of the Foreign Affairs Ministry of the Russian Federation (MGIMO), Russia Richard W. Janney, University of Munich, Germany Kasia Jaszczolt, University of Cambridge, UK Elizabeth Keating, University of Texas, USA Sotaro Kita, University of Bristol, UK Ron Kuzar, University of Haifa, Israel Alec McHoul, Murdoch University, Australia Brigitte Nerlich, Nottingham University, UK Etsuko Oishi, Fuji Women’s University, Japan Srikant Sarangi, Cardiff University, UK Marina Sbisà, University of Trieste, Italy Maxim Stamenov, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria Deborah Tannen, Georgetown University, USA

This page intentionally left blank

To Elvira

This page intentionally left blank

CONTENTS Acknowledgments

xv

Introduction

1

Foreword Presentation of the corpus Structure of the book Transcription conventions List of abbreviations List of metalinguistic abbreviations Glossary

Chapter 1 Pragmatics: subject and subjectivity 1.0. 1.1. 1.2. 1.3. 1.3.1. 1.3.2. 1.3.3. 1.4. 1.5. 1.6. 1.7. 1.8. 1.9. 1.10.

Foreword Towards a psychostylistics of interaction A ‘loaded’ discipline The subjectivity of language The instance d’énonciation (Benveniste, 1966) The deictic origin (Bühler, 1934) The egocentric child (Piaget, 1989 [1926]) A complex subjectivity Stylistic markers Semiotic markers The function of identity maintance and ‘speech markers’ (Giles et al., 1979) Contextualizations cues (Gumperz, 1982a) Mitigation: first definitions Bridging the gap between linguistic pragmatics and self-psychology

1 3 5 9 9 10 11

13

13 15 21 24 24 25 26 28 29 35 36 38 40 43

x

Contents

Chapter 2 Mitigation: the background 2.0. 2.0.1. 2.0.2. 2.1. 2.1.1. 2.1.2. 2.1.3. 2.1.3.1. 2.1.3.2. 2.1.4. 2.1.4.1. 2.1.4.2. 2.1.4.3. 2.1.5. 2.1.6. 2.1.7. 2.1.8. 2.1.8.1. 2.1.8.2. 2.2. 2.2.1. 2.2.2. 2.3. 2.3.1. 2.3.2. 2.4.

Introduction Structure of the chapter Scopes of mitigating devices Ideas of mitigation Mitigation in different research areas: the empirical turn Hedges in Brown and Levinson (1987) Mitigation as vagueness: hedges Lakoff (1972) Bourdieu (1982) Mitigation as indirectedness (Fraser, 1975; Leech, 1983; Holmes, 1984) Fraser (1975) Leech (1983) Holmes (1984) Mitigation as de-focalization of deictic origin Mitigation as removal of unwelcome perlocutionary effects (Fraser, 1980) Prince, Frader, and Bosk (1982) The notion of weakening (Abschwächung) Meyer-Hermann and Weingarten (1982) Langner (1994) Intensity Intensity according to Bally (1970 [1909]) Intensity according to Strawson (1964) Towards an extended notion of mitigation Some conceptual distinctions The multidisciplinary relevance of mitigation Conclusions

Chapter 3 Pragmatics of mitigation: bushes, hedges and shields 3.0. 3.1. 3.2. 3.3. 3.3.1.

Introduction Mitigation as a bridging category Types of mitigating devices (Habermas, 1987 [1981]) The functioning of mitigation Bushes

47

47 47 49 51 51 53 56 56 60 61 61 63 64 66 66 69 70 71 72 73 74 76 80 80 87 89

91

91 93 95 97 98

Contents

3.3.2. 3.3.3. 3.3.4. 3.4. 3.5.

Hedges Combination of bushes and hedges Shields Other strategies of mitigation: quotational shields and topical shields Conclusions

Chapter 4 Mitigation and emotive communication: steps toward a psychostylistic approach

4.0. 4.1. 4.1.1. 4.1.2. 4.2. 4.3. 4.4. 4.4.1. 4.4.2. 4.4.3. 4.4.4. 4.5. 4.6. 4.7. 4.7.1. 4.7.2. 4.8. 4.8.1. 4.8.2. 4.9. 4.10.

Introduction Style as a psycholinguistic issue: the role of emotion Mitigation as an empathic strategy: attunement (Stern, 1985) The other edge of the sword: mitigation as an anti-empathic strategy On the conceptualization of emotion in linguistic theories A folk psychological category: involvement An approach to emotive communication (Caffi and Janney, 1994b) Emotive communication and emotional communication The notion of emotive contrast Types of emotive devices Emotive closeness and distance: empathic deixis Immediacy (Wiener and Mehrabian, 1968) Equivocation (Beavin Bavelas, 1985; Beavin Bavelas et al., 1990) Disqualification Haley (1959) Mitigation and diqualification Transactional disqualification (Sluzki et al., 1967) Types of transactional disqualification Reactive moves to transactional disqualification The Freudian concept of ‘undoing’(Ungeschehenmachen) Conclusions

Chapter 5 Doctor-patient dialogue: a case-study 5.0. 5.1. 5.2.

Introduction Analysis of a dialogue at a primary care physician’s The broader summary of the encounter: the fabula

xi

102 104 106 114 117

121

121 123 125 129 132 136 138 138 139 141 143 145 149 150 150 152 154 155 157 158 159

161

161 163 165

xii

Contents

5.2.1. 5.2.2. 5.3. 5.4. 5.5. 5.6. 5.7. 5.8. 5.8.1. 5.8.2. 5.9. 5.10. 5.11. 5.12.

The phases of the encounter The recurrent trend of the phases Between fabula and plot: salient moments of the encounter Muldimensional microanalysis of TR1: the plot The argumentative layer The illocutionary layer: overall illocutionary description of the phases Mitigation and institutional politeness in TR1 Micro-sequences of (non)-attunement Topical and stylistic non-attunement Micro-sequences of stylistic attunement Distribution of mitigators Mitigation and monitoring of emotive distances Co-variance among parameters Conclusions

Chapter 6 Grammar of mitigation in doctor-patient dialogue 6.0. 6.1. 6.2. 6.3. 6.4. 6.5. 6.5.1. 6.5.2. 6.6. 6.6.1. 6.6.1.1. 6.6.1.2. 6.6.1.3. 6.6.2. 6.6.2.1. 6.6.2.2. 6.7. 6.7.1. 6.7.2. 6.7.3.

Introduction Preliminary questions Mitigation and institutional politeness Types of mitigation Between natural and non-natural mitigation: a transitional case Non-natural mitigation Lenitive mitigation Tempering mitigation Linguistic means of lenitive and tempering mitigation Linguistic means of lenitive mitigation Lenitive mitigation and deference Summary of linguistic means of lenitive mitigation Strategies of lenitive mitigation Linguistic means of tempering mitigation Prepositional phrases in tempering mitigation Summary of linguistic means of tempering mitigation Mitigation and felicity conditions (constitutive rules) Attenuation of compliance with essential rules Attenuation of compliance with preparatory rules Attenuation of compliance with the propositional content rule

167 168 171 176 185 186 189 192 192 195 197 200 202 204

207

207 209 212 216 217 220 220 222 226 226 236 238 240 242 251 254 255 256 256 257

Contents

6.7.4. 6.8.

Mitigation as side-effect of the reinforcement of the sincerity rule Conclusions: toward a pragmatic typology of mitigators

xiii

257 259

Conclusions

263

Bibliography

273

Appendices

299

Appendix A: TR1, dialogue at a primary care physician’s (Ch. 5) Appendix B: Examples from Chapter 6 A) ‘Lenitive’ mitigation (directive acts) B) ‘Tempering’ mitigation (assertive-verdictive acts) C) Other types of mitigation (other acts)

301 317 317 320 323

Name Index

325

Subject Index

333

This page intentionally left blank

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank all the colleagues, students and friends who have been sources of encouragement, constructive criticism and support. Covering the winding and obstacle-ridden path to this book – what with rethinking, shortening, and translating the original Italian version (Caffi, 2001) – has required a lot of time and effort. I now find it impossible to individually acknowledge all those who have been supportive along the way. I will thus mention only a few. Letizia Cirillo has greatly helped me at all the different stages of this time- and energyconsuming work, generously accompanying me from the first draft and tentative translation into English to the final editing of Chapters 1-4 and 6. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Richard W. Janney, who was ‘exposed’ to the first version of the book and gave me precious feedback. Among those whose help I have to mention are: Salvatore Attardo, Alessandra Fasulo, Shona Fowler, Sara Gesuato, Hartmut Haberland, Klaus Hölker, Giulio Lepschy, Margaret Malone, Jacob L. Mey, Bice Mortara Garavelli, Amanda Murphy, Marina Sbisà. I would like to thank Sarah Oates and Christopher Tancock of Elsevier for their support and patience. I also would like to thank the series editor, Bruce Fraser, who helped me to straighten out the line of reasoning of the book and enhance its cohesion and clarity. Any remaining faults and deficiencies are certainly only my own. Finally, I owe a special thanks to the anonymous doctors and patients who were willing to have their interactions recorded, thus making this research possible. I do hope that, at least in the long run, this work may be useful to them all.

Genoa, January 2006

Claudia Caffi

This page intentionally left blank

INTRODUCTION o vita pauperum, deus meus, in cuius sinu non est contradictio, plue mihi mitigationes in cor, ut patienter tales feram. Aug., Conf. XII, XXV 34. O life of the poor, my God, in Whose bosom there is no contradiction, pour a rain of mitigations on my heart, so that I may bear those people with patience. (my translation, C.C.)

FOREWORD The key idea behind the present book is very simple: style is inherent in the use of language. However useful heuristically, the neutral, ‘gray’ expressions used as examples in linguistics, including pragmatics, do not exist but in the minds of linguists. In real life, our utterances are usually modulated, i.e. stylistically ‘colored’ in order to fit different contexts and to express our feelings. As real speakers, we do not normally say things like France is hexagonal. At best, if pressed, we may say If I’m not wrong, France is sort of hexagonal, isn’t it? Nor do we usually say The cat is on the mat. We are more likely to say something like Your damned cat is on my mat again, get it off right now, and so on. Even the most impersonal forms of communication such as warning notices seem to be touched by the need of coloring. For instance in New York, we may happen to be threatened not by the neutral No parking, but by the reinforced form Don’t even think of parking here. At other times we may feel the actual need to express our personal investment in what we say, that is, to convey more than the simple subscription to the truth of the propositional content of our utterances. This need also surfaces in stylistic choices. And it is precisely this need that makes Galileo say “And yet it moves”, (“Eppur si muove”),

2

Introduction

instead of a detached “the earth turns”, and risk his life. 1 Style is not only a matter of manners. If pragmatics is the discipline that deals with authentic language usage in the real world, as I think it is, it must necessarily take style into account. Talking about modulation is a pragmatic way of talking about style, which makes an otherwise excessively broad and conceptually loaded category fully operational. Unlike the general category ‘style’, ‘modulation’ foregrounds the active, intentional and personal dimension of stylistic choices. It refers to the operations that speakers perform to vary the intensity of their speech acts. Speakers constantly make their speech acts either ‘stronger’ or ‘weaker’, that is, they vary the intensity of their utterances, as a pianist does with notes by using the pedal. 2 Variations of intensity that we constantly experience signal variations in emotive involvement, which is a pragmatic way of referring to the speakers’ inner world surfacing in their choices in discourse. In their goal-directed, communicative behavior, speakers usually modulate their utterances in two opposite directions, namely mitigation and reinforcement. Mitigation is the weakening direction of modulation. Its counterpart in the opposite, strengthening direction is reinforcement. The latter covers all the operations aimed at giving prominence to a given linguistic choice. In actual speech, it is often impossible to distinguish between the two: a formal mitigating device can be functionally reinforcing. Indeed, mitigation is inherently ambivalent. And this ambivalence is just one aspect of the rhetorical functioning of speech. Let us consider, for instance, a type of mitigation, a litotes such as “John is not bright”. How is the negative form to be interpreted? In such cases, it is up to the interlocutor, contextually, not only to decide on the illocutionary force of the utterance – whether it is an assertion, a piece of criticism, a piece of advice, etc. – but also to interpret its propositional content as being either weakened or reinforced. In the present example, the speaker may think that John may be a bit shy, just too uptight for his role, or simply dull. 3

1

This example can be found in Bally (1965 [1925]: 15), where he introduces the distinction between the intellectual mode (mode pur) and the affective mode (mode vécu) (cf. 2.2.1.). For a discussion, cf. Hübler (1987: 362 ff.). 2 This simile is found in Spitzer (1931 [1928]). 3 Litotes, double negatives, etc. have been the object of an impressive body of scholarship over the centuries and in recent pragmatics. I consider some of the relevant literature in Caffi (1990) and Caffi (1992) where, while rejecting the alleged automatic hyperbolic nature of litotes, I propose ‘indeterminacy’ among its constitutive pragmatic features. Here suffice it to mention the studies by Horn (in particular, Horn, 1989; Horn, 1991), a classic in this field of research, which, however, is still lacking an adequate empirical basis. Empirical evidence supporting the view that “negation markers hedge information rather than discard it”, i.e. data corroborating the ‘retention hypothesis’ as opposed to the ‘suppression hypothesis’, can be found in Giora et al. (2005a). According to this view, which has been put forward by many authors and is compatible with the traditional rhetorical treatment of litotes, “information introduced via negation would be retained and tinge the interpretation of the negated item so that the outcome is a mitigated product involving both the negativity of the negation marker and also the expressed meaning of the negated item” (ibid.). “He is a little…somewhat…not exceptionally

Introduction

3

Speakers mitigate out of uncertainty, caution, or consideration. Briefly put, they mitigate to attune with others. Mitigation is pervasive in speech, as speakers do not commit themselves more than is strictly necessary. Far from being limited to a matter of politeness, mitigation captures rationally grounded behavior mainly aimed at avoiding unnecessary risks, responsibilities and conflicts. At the same time, mitigation indexes the type of speaker we want to be taken for in a given encounter. In other words, mitigation is a way in which pragmatics addresses the issue of the linguistic co-construction of our (multiple, fragmented, uneven, even if not contradictory) identity. An issue of this kind can only be dealt with in an integrated interdisciplinary approach which combines rhetorical, stylistic, psychological and linguistic reflection on the actual functioning of human interaction. A speaker’s (mitigated) style encompasses the main pathways leading up to every linguistic action. These pathways are emotions, language, and relationships with others. Self psychology, linguistics, and sociology provide us with the analytical tools to guide us along these pathways. Pragmatics provides us with the tools to study the ways in which these very pathways intertwine in speech. In following this ‘labyrinth’ from the specific angle of (micro-) stylistic choices, I will use as a thread a botanical metaphor: ‘bushes’, ‘hedges’ and ‘shields’ are the labels of three basic mitigating strategies. Bushes are devices that introduce vagueness in the propositional content of an utterance. Hedges are mitigators centered on illocutionary force. Shields are the operations centered on the ‘I-here-now’ of the utterance, i.e. its deictic origin. By means of shields the source of the speech act is veiled, disguised or deleted. The different types of mitigators, which are investigated in Chapters 3 and 6, are taken from my corpus of doctor-patient interaction in spoken Italian.

PRESENTATION OF THE CORPUS My main concern in the present book is to set up an integrated pragmatic framework for the analysis of interactional strategies, and to describe mitigation strategies in spoken Italian within this framework. In order to avoid a generic and idealized analysis, it is necessary to limit the type of data to be examined, and to select it from a specific activity type. Verifying principles, categories, and explicative hypotheses ‘live’, so to speak, against real data, i.e. in situated communicative situations, is not a by-product of a theory, nor a mere testing of tools applied to a certain field. Rather, if we are not content with ‘desk-pragmatics’, such verification is a necessary step in the researcher’s back-and-forth movement between analysis and synthesis, that is, in her/his constant reflection on her/his data. In the psychological field, Freud saw an “inseparable bond” between theory and the method of bright” is an example discussed in Giora et al. (2005b), whose main goal is to show the hedging functions of negation markers in ironic remarks.

4

Introduction

treatment. Similarly, in an integrated pragmatic framework, theory and praxis cannot be separated, and in addition, their osmosis has to be brought to light. The choice of doctor-patient interaction is due to the fact that mitigation is clearly of great relevance to doctor-patient discourse, and to therapeutic discourse in general. In the present book I rely on my previous research into the subject which appeared in Caffi (2001). 4 On the whole, mitigation is obviously a way of being cautious with respect to words/actions that may entail risks, which are particularly evident in the asymmetrical context of doctor-patient interaction. In this shortened version of a book originally written in Italian, I have refrained from fully describing this type of institutional discourse as such.5 Much work has already been done on asymmetrical doctor-patient encounters (cf., among others, Haberland and Mey, 1981; Raffler-Engel, 1990; Ehlich et al., 1990; Todd and Fisher, 1993; Have, 1995b; Wodak, 1997; Cordella, 2004) and no attempt will be made in this book to review this literature. Nor will I endorse an orthodox conversational analytical methodology. Rather, my approach will combine several different perspectives. The data of this study consist of 25 transcripts of doctor-patient and psychotherapeutic conversations collected from 1993 to 2001 in two big towns of Northern Italy in different clinical settings (see below). The length of the recording is about 9 hours. The resulting corpus contains the following types of data: 17 transcripts of doctor-patient dialogues (TR1-TR17); 1 transcript of a psychiatric interview (TR18); 7 transcripts of psychotherapeutic dialogues (TR19-TR25). The dialogues are of variable length: the psychotherapeutic dialogues are often very long, lasting an average of 45 minutes; the doctor-patient dialogues are often very short, as in the case of the exchanges taking place during the ward-round at the hospital. However, they have all been transcribed in their entirety. The excerpts discussed in the present work (Chapters 3, 5, 6, and Conclusions) are taken from the following types of medical contexts: 5 4 3

dialogues at a primary care physician’s (TR1-TR5, PC); dialogues during visits at a specialist’s (TR6-TR9, SpV); dialogues during the round at the obstetrics ward at the hospital (TR10-TR12, WR);

4 The theoretical model as well as the typology of mitigators proposed in Caffi (2001) have been used and developed, also in a contrastive perspective, by Hölker (2003) and Schneider (forthcoming). 5 Linguistic aspects of institutional discourse are discussed in, among others, Drew and Heritage (1992); Gunnarsson, Linell and Nordberg (1997); Sarangi and Roberts (1999). On asymmetries in dialogue see, among other, Marková and Foppa (1991); De Swaan (1990).

Introduction

5 1 7

5

dialogues during post-operative examinations of patients who have undergone radiotherapy (for cancer) (TR13-TR17, Rt); dialogue during a psychiatric visit to a public institution (TR18, PsV); psychotherapy sessions held by three different psychotherapists (TR19-TR25, PsS).

The doctors involved had a micro-recorder running, which could be seen by the patients. The patients had previously been informed of the recording for research purposes and had given their permission. In the case of psychotherapy sessions, the recording was actually part of the professional’s routine practice. In order to further guarantee privacy and to avoid introducing distracting factors into the analysis, such as my personal acquaintance with the doctor, I have used materials obtained through third parties who acted as intermediaries and guarantors. This is an advantage, not only from an ethical point if view, but also from the point of view of the need for neutrality in observation, and it greatly outweighs the disadvantage of the lack of precise information on the interactional partners.

STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK The structure of the book is as follows:

Chapter 1 Pragmatics: Subject and subjectivity sketches the general view of pragmatics that best suits an extended notion of mitigation. The chapter has three major goals. First, it recasts mitigation in a broad framework that enables us to consider the different dimensions of mitigated stylistic choices. Mitigation highlights the subjective quality inherent in speech. More precisely, it is a trace of the speaker’s ongoing process of adaptation to the hearer. Pragmatics can thus be defined as the study of the ways in which the subjective orientation of every speech act becomes intersubjective. Second, it lays the foundations of an integrated pragmatic approach. With this goal in mind, it is possible to gain important insights into subjectivity, which have a bearing on mitigation, by drawing on the works of such authors as Benveniste, Bühler and Piaget. Third, it is argued that mitigation lends itself to connecting practical needs and relational needs, which all contribute to determining the speaker’s linguistic choices. Indeed, different dimensions are convergent in these choices. They are: the identity-oriented dimension (relevant to the interlocutors’ social roles), the emotive dimension (relevant to the interpersonal distances geared by a given formal choice), and the emotional dimension (relevant to the subject’s inner world and various selves). Only an integrated pragmatic approach makes it

6

Introduction

possible to deal with this last dimension, whose central role has been recognized in principle as much as it has been neglected in practice.

Chapter 2 Mitigation: The background explores previous research on mitigation both historically and theoretically. First, it presents a selected overview of studies on mitigation produced in the last few decades. The criterion adopted for selection is deliberately focused: previous studies are clustered around the three scopes of mitigating devices, i.e. proposition, illocution, and deictic origin. In the first case, mitigation is basically seen as vagueness, in the second as indirectness, and in the third as deletion of the speaker as the actual source of the utterance. Second, a specific connection between stylistics and speech act theory is proposed. This connection, hinted at by Strawson (1964), is the notion of intensity, or its operational counterpart, namely (reinforcing or mitigating) modulation of illocutionary force. The crucial point is that our understanding of intensity phenomena is part and parcel of our understanding of speech acts. Finally, some conceptual distinctions (e.g. mitigation as a process vs. mitigation as a result, illocutionary vs. perlocutionary mitigation, etc.) are made with a view to shifting from a narrow to a broad concept of mitigation.

Chapter 3 Pragmatics of mitigation: Bushes, hedges and shields has the major goal of investigating the ways in which mitigation increases or reduces the speaker’s distance from both the utterance and her/his interlocutors. The chapter draws on the discussion of actual examples of mitigating strategies in spoken Italian to show that mitigation works in a multilevel, multidimensional way. In order to start building a typology of mitigating devices in spoken Italian, some of the examples to be discussed in Chapter 6 from a grammatical viewpoint, are discussed here from a functional viewpoint. Specifically, the three categories of mitigators, namely bushes, hedges and shields, are analyzed in their cognitive and emotive impact. ‘Quotational’ and ‘topical’ shields, which reveal the strategic mitigating potential of discourse texture, are presented. Finally, the correspondences between rhetorical, psychological, and pragmatic categories introduced throughout the book are summarized. These correspondences, however tentative, can be regarded as possible non-generic starting points for future research that aims at connecting fields that have for too long been unrelated. This chapter (and this book as a whole) is an attempt at rediscovering the unity of our knowledge about our words, ourselves, and our relationships with others that ancient rhetoric established as its main goal at its very outset.

Introduction

7

Chapter 4 Mitigation and emotive communication: Steps toward a psychostylistic approach investigates mitigation from the viewpoint of psychological research. It is a decisive step toward the construction of an integrated approach that takes into account emotive factors involved in mitigating processes. Key notions such as ‘involvement’ and ‘immediacy’, which lend themselves easily to bridging pragmatic and psychological research, are discussed. An important contribution to a better understanding of mitigation mechanisms is the notion of attunement as conceived by Stern (1985) in a developmental psychoanalytical framework. In everyday life, mitigation indexes the speaker’s attempt to tune in to her/his interlocutor. On the other hand, mitigation may increase distances, inasmuch as it aims at controlling the ongoing interaction and implicitly marks the speech act in which it occurs as potentially problematic. Hence mitigation runs the risk of being anti-empathic. Important evidence supporting this thesis is gathered from an independent field of research, namely research on schizophrenic speech. Conceptual categories elaborated in that field serve to describe and explain microparadoxes which punctuate verbal ‘normal’ exchanges. In particular, an insightful category is found in Haley’s (1959) and Sluzky et al.’s (1967) category of disqualification. The overall sense of this notion is the avoidance of responsibility in communication, and some types of mitigation perform precisely this task. The main point of the chapter is to show that psychological and linguistic insights in mitigation are heading toward this same conclusion.

Chapter 5 Doctor-patient dialogue: A case-study applies the views on mitigation set up in the previous chapters to the analysis of a whole doctor-patient dialogue. In particular, substantiating one of the tenets pointed out in Chapter 1, this chapter shows how mitigation, in the broad sense of stylistic downgrading choices, meets both instrumental and relational goals. The dialogue in question is a peculiar exchange in which the patient does not show the expected deference toward the expert and even seems to challenge his role. On his part, the doctor fails to attune to the patient’s style. A detailed, multi-layered analysis of the dialogue is provided, which zooms in on the text and comprises a global description of the macro-phases of the institutional encounter as well as a turn-by-turn reconstruction of the interlocutors’ interactional work. A recurrent pattern emerges: after a phase of potential conflict, the interlocutors reach a compromise. Sequences of interactional attunements or failures of attunement are identified. The interlocutors go through a difficult negotiation in order to avoid open conflict. The chapter aims at proving that, in describing, so to speak, in slow motion, the role of mitigation in this negotiation work, the sociolinguistic perspective must be integrated with the psycholinguistic perspective: style is the place where the interplay of social factors (power) and psychological factors (emotions) surfaces in discourse. To take into account this

8

Introduction

interplay is vital in order to reach an adequate, though inevitably tentative, reconstruction of the processes through which speakers (re)construct meanings and pursue their goals. In particular, the chapter stresses the role of emotive factors triggered by mitigation in the construction of meaning and in the mutual adjustment of relational distances.

Chapter 6 Grammar of mitigation in doctor-patient dialogue discusses excerpts taken from my corpus of transcribed doctor-patient conversations. From a descriptive standpoint, it offers an overview of the linguistic means (morphological, syntactic and prosodic) used in a standard variety of spoken Italian in a given institutional setting (therapeutic encounter) to obtain an attenuating modification of speech acts. These mitigators are clustered around two macro-types of speech acts: requests and statements. Mitigation is labeled ‘lenitive’ in the former case and ‘tempering’ in the latter. Lenitive (or deontic) mitigation accounts for the various cases in which the degree of imposition of the directive is weakened. Tempering (or epistemic) mitigation encompasses the various cases in which what is weakened is the commitment to the truth of the assertion. This overview leads to a theoretically relevant result. The analysis of formal devices of tempering mitigation in assertive-verdictive acts and of lenitive mitigation in exercitive-directive acts shows a structural analogy between these two types of mitigation. Further, the punctual reference to felicity conditions for both types of mitigation allows for the explanation of this analogy.

In a short conclusive chapter (Conclusions) the mitigation strategies in spoken Italian discussed in the book are listed in a final typology.

The book ends with two Appendices: the first Appendix (Appendix A) gives the transcript of the doctor-patient dialogue analyzed in Chapter 5 in the original Italian version and in its English translation. The numbering of lines in the English translation has been adapted so as to correspond as closely as possible to the Italian original. The second Appendix (Appendix B) lists the examples, both in the original Italian version and in English, on which the analysis carried out in Chapter 6 is based.

Introduction

TRANSCRIPTION CONVENTIONS . ? , ! -: ƑƑxx xxx XXX °xxx° h = +xxx* (…?) ((xx)) […] >xxx
non è il fatto di aver fame< non lo so perché lo faccio. devo proprio: mangiare mangiare mangiare. T. mh. questo succede eh:: - occasionalmente. succede più volte: in relazione a: (PsS, TR19) C. erm it’s just that I start eating and I just can’t stop. until I feel that I could explode I continue. I mean I never stop. but >it’s not because I’m hungry ((lit. it’s not the fact of being hungry))< I don’t know why I do it. I just: have to keep eating eating eating. T. umh. this happens e::rm - occasionally. it happens often: it’s associated with:

the shield used by the therapist centers on the ‘you’. This is the initial phase of the first interview by a therapist with a bulimic client. The therapist asks her client to provide some more details about the symptoms connected to bulimia that the client herself has just reported. In all utterances composing her turn, the client has used the first-person singular (‘I just have to keep eating’). The therapist deletes this reference to the subject of the utterance in her

Pragmatics of mitigation: bushes, hedges and shields

109

interlocutor’s turn and encapsulates it by shifting to an impersonal third person (‘this happens’). This enables her to temporarily thematize/foreground the symptom she would like to know more about. In fact, she asks for some factual specifications on its frequency, thus postponing to a later stage all inquiries about the possible causes of the problem, which, however, seem to be anticipated by means of the truncated sentence ‘it’s often associated with’. From a relational point of view, the shield in 9) makes it possible to look at the problem from the outside at least temporarily, therefore avoiding any form of judgment or accusation and somewhat slowing down the excited pace of C.’s self-incriminations. Example 10) is interesting since it overtly deals with negotiations about responsibility for what is said and done. This example illustrates different shields of objectivization and impersonalization. Further, it shows oscillations between downgrading and reinforcement. In 10): 10)

C. non ci sono pensieri. T. non ci sono. C. non c’è ideazione. non ci sono pensieri. non c’è (h) emotività. non c’è reattività agli stimoli dell’ambiente. non c’è:: ->bò.< T. e quindi ha distrutto la propria intelligenza. C. ma. ‘ho’ (citazione polemica della formulazione di T.) è: è stata. si è. adesso non mi vorrei proprio assumere la responsabilità completamente (ride) (PsS) C. there are no thoughts. T. there aren’t. C. there is no capacity of thinking. there are no thoughts. there’s no (h) emotivity. there is no capacity of reaction to stimuli from the environment. there isn’t:: ->I don’t know.< T. so you have destroyed your mind. C. but. ‘I have’ (polemical quotation of T.’s formulation). it is: it has been. it has. now I wouldn’t want to take the whole responsibility (laughs)

the client speaks of her feelings as a matter of fact. Her utterance is objectified through the use of the perfective aspect. In fact, she does not say ‘I don’t have thoughts’ (io non ho pensieri), but ‘there are no thoughts’ (non ci sono pensieri). Grammatically speaking, the ‘I’, i.e. the ego or source of the utterance, has been deleted and what is described is not an action but a state of affairs. It is as if the client was watching her thoughts from the outside, as an external observer. The therapist (a psychoanalyst) reformulates the client’s words using a reinforced, almost brutal paraphrase, with a move that we could call Aktivierung/Dynamisierung (cf. Weingarten, 1990). Such move takes the client’s account literally and transforms it into an action that she has actually performed. At this point, the client changes her mind and, after a false start, where she echoes the therapist’s formulation in a polemical tone, she uses other shields to create a

110

Mitigation

‘generic person’ (cf. above). These are impersonal and passive constructions, which, however, are still not sufficient to express her refusal to completely undertake the responsibility for ‘having destroyed her mind’. Hence, she feels she needs to make this point explicit. Example 11) illustrates a sub-case of objectivization, i.e. a gnomic-proverbial statement. A generic, impersonal third-person subject is used instead of the second-person subject (‘when you get nervous’) and her/his behavior is considered to be prototypical. At the same time, there is no surface trace of the actual utterer, as if the expert’s opinion had become a matter of general knowledge. Examples of this kind are included in Brown and Levinson’s (1987: 231) thirteenth strategy of negative politeness, which they call ‘hyper-generalization’. According to rhetoricians, this kind of strategies is used to establish (or increase) immediacy and communion with the audience, they are figures de la présence et de la communion (cf. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1958: §42). It easy to see their closeness with the pragmatic categories variously labeled as common knowledge, background knowledge, shared belief, etc. In 11): 11)

D. quando uno diventa nervoso fa così. (PsV, TR18) D. when one gets nervous one acts that way.

the patient’s behavior is treated as anybody’s behavior, i.e. as normal in those circumstances. Moreover, since the statement is pronounced by an authority, it acquires the status of an unquestionable, atemporal, apodictic truth. I will not pursue the question of gnomic-proverbial constructions any further, aware as I am that they would deserve a thorough pragmatic inquiry. However, given its relevance to the perspective adopted here, I would like to mention in passing a specific point made by Bouacha (1993) with reference to constructions where the ‘I’ does not designate the actual utterer, but a generic speaker. The author calls this type of syntactic structure a ‘generalizing utterance’ (énoncé généralisant) i.e. an utterance construed as a representative token of a class of equivalent modulated utterances (ibid.: 321). 4 According to Bouacha, the main function of these kinds of utterances is to foster agreement on the part of the recipient. The point that is important to highlight here is the following: despite the relational distance that can be inferred from such constructions in examples like 8) above, it can be argued that generalizing utterances seem often exemplify what Bouacha calls an ‘overinvestment’ (surinvestissement) on the part of the speaker. In particular, 4

An example of generic utterance is: “La baleine est un mammifère” (‘whales are mammals’), whereas an example of generalizing utterance (énoncé généralisant) is: “Un enfant aggressif est souvent un enfant malheureux“ (‘an aggressive kid is often an unhappy kid’). According to Bouacha (1993: 313), souvent (often) in the second example is “une modulation de l’énoncé pour le rendre plus acceptable à l’auditoire” (‘a modulation of the utterance which aims at making it more acceptable to the hearer’, my translation, C.C.).

Pragmatics of mitigation: bushes, hedges and shields

111

This kind of utterances, far from being decontextualized, without a pragmatic impact and a reference, instantiates on the contrary a sort of an overinvestment on the part of the speaker. In short, these utterances, far from suppressing the intersubjectivity, somehow radicalize it. (Bouacha, 1993: 314, my translation, C.C.)

This type of description highlights a type of “emotional element” among the ones noted by Jespersen in the passage quoted above (Jespersen, 1924: 215). The major drawback of this type of description is that it ignores the actual context of the utterance. Actually, as Jespersen argued, generalizing utterances as well as “the generic use of ‘man’, ‘one’, ‘si’ as a disguised ‘I’” (Jespersen, 1924: 205) 5 can have the aim either of protecting the speaker, keeping her/him in the background, or of emphasizing her/his role both as a particularly competent speaker and social member. As a matter of fact, such constructions may convey the presupposition that the speaker feels for some reason entitled to speak on behalf of the speech community. Once again, we are faced with the pervasive ambivalence of stylistic choices. A typical shield in doctor-patient interaction is the first-person plural. Before Brown and Levinson (1987) listed the ‘inclusive we’ among positive politeness strategies, Spitzer and Jespersen had already pointed out its typical pragmatic function, i.e. the function of shaping mutual understanding and agreement. Spitzer (1922: 75) introduces the concept of plurale sociativus,which corresponds to the ‘inclusive we’: by means of the fictitious sharing of the action by the speaker and the hearer enacted by this pronominal choice, mutual understanding, as well as solidarity are furthered. 6 A further point that is relevant for my purposes is made by Jespersen who advances the notion of ‘paternal we’. Jespersen writes: Among substitutes for notional second person I shall first mention the paternal we, often used by teachers and doctors (“Well, and how are we to-day?”) and denoting kindness through identifying the interests of speaker and hearer. This seems to be common in many countries, e.g. in Denmark, in Germany (Grimm, Personenwechsel, 19), in France (Bourget, Disc. 94 “Hé bien, nous deviendrons un grand savant comme le père?” / Maupassant, Fort c.l. m. 224 “Oui, nous avons de l’anémie, des troubles nerveux” – immediately followed by vous). The usual tinge of protection in this we is absent from the frequent Danish “Jeg skal sige os” (Let me tell you). (Jespersen, 1924: 217-218).

5

Jespersen does not draw a sharp distinction between ‘indefinite person’ and ‘generic constructions’. On the contrary, he states: “The difference between this ‘indefinite person’ and the generic use of man (in ‘man is mortal’) is not easy to define, and seems often to be emotional rather than intellectual” (Jespersen, 1924: 205). 6 The original passage I am referring to is the following: “Unter den Mitteln, sich das Einverständnis des Partners zu sichern, sei vor allem der soziative Plural erwähnt: eine Handlung, die im Grunde nur der Partner ausführt, wird in den Plural gesetzt, damit der Partner in der Fiktion lebe, er sei nicht allein (socios habuisse malorum), mit ihm gemeinsam wirke der Sprecher” (Spitzer, 1922: 75).

112

Mitigation

Significantly, Jespersen associates the use of this kind of first personal plural pronoun with didactic and clinical discourse. Example 12) is a directive. Here the shield focuses on both the ‘I’ and the ‘you’. In 12): 12)

D. dobbiamo fare una radiografia dell’articolazione del femore con l’anca. (PC, TR2) D. we’ll have to do an X-ray of the hip joint.

the first-person plural signals a personal involvement on the part of the doctor; its function here seems to be opposite to the above quoted function hypothesized by Gumperz. 7 It is a pseudoinclusive ‘we’ (cf. Haverkate, 1992), a solidarity ‘we’ that replaces both the ‘I’ (e.g. ‘I suggest an X-ray’) and the ‘you’ (e.g. ‘you must do an X-ray’). In other words, the shield is on the utterer, thus avoiding an explicit prescription, as well as on the addressee, thus being exempted from an individual obligation. The performance of the action prescribed is depicted as if it was somehow shared by the doctor: the first-person plural is the visible grammatical trace of this sharing. The dislocation of the act to someone else, which is obtained by substituting the first-person pronoun with other personal pronouns, is known in rhetoric as ‘enallage of persons’ (cf. Perelman and OlbrechtsTyteca, 1958: §42). The use of the deontic modal dovere (‘must’), which imposes the obligation, is the second mitigating device in 12). Modal devices can be both mitigating and reinforcing depending on the context and on the criterion of analysis. For instance, it is easy to see that, from a logical point of view, on a scale of modals, dovere (‘must’) is a downgrader compared to è necessario (‘it is necessary’), while it is an upgrader compared to potere (‘can’, ‘could’). Besides, from a psychological point of view, ‘must’ could be seen as an upgrader with respect to ‘it is necessary’, which is impersonal, hence less immediate from the partner’s standpoint. In 13), which will be further examined later on in this work (cf. Chapter 5), the architecture of the ‘eventualization’ shield is more complex. In 13): 13)

D. poi oltre a tutto lui lavora al xxx [nome di ospedale] di xxx [nome di luogo] ci fosse da fare non so paradossalmente da operare, (PC, TR1, Appendix A, ll. 352-353) D. what’s more, he works at xxx [name of hospital] in xxx [name of place] so if it was necessary ((lit. there was (SUBJ))) to do I don’t know paradoxically to operate,

7

Among the many possible pragmatic values of the use of the first-person plural, it is worth mentioning the following, which is exactly the opposite of the rhetorical device called plurale maiestatis: “le persan et le turc se servent d’un pluriel ‘nous’ pour réferer à l’addresseur, par fusion (dépréciative, et donc polie) de son individualité dans l’anonymat d’une collection” (Hagège, 1985: 279).

Pragmatics of mitigation: bushes, hedges and shields

113

what is mitigated is the speech act ‘supposition’. This is done in order to make the (actually realistic) hypothesis of an operation more distant and unlikely. However, an evaluation lurks in the background, something like ‘maybe an operation will be necessary’. Example 13) instantiates a cumulative use of linguistic devices. These are: textual, i.e. oltre a tutto (‘what’s more’) which introduces the message as one among the many possible topics, thereby decreasing its importance; syntactic, i.e. the subjunctive in the hypothetical construction; and lexical, i.e. the marker non so (‘I don’t know’) and the evaluative adverb paradossalmente (‘paradoxically’). The latter is a kind of metacommunicative gloss affecting both the speech act as a whole (‘I’m only saying, as a paradox, that…’) and the propositional content, which is thus further removed. Moreover, it is a stylistic cue that opens the way to a more formal register. The shifting away from one aspect of the deictic origin of the utterance can become a global strategy, as in 14). This example enables me to move on to the category of topical shields. Example 14) illustrates a ‘narrativization’ shield, i.e. a global strategy of de-actualization of a topic. In this case the topic is the patient’s present state, which is salient in that specific context, namely the first session in a course of psychotherapy. A negative affect toward the topic can be inferred from this removal, this process of de-actualization which signals a separation from the present communication (cf. Wiener and Mehrabian, 1968). At another level of analysis, it can be claimed that this strategy aims at self-protection (traditional psychoanalysis would describe it in terms of ‘resistance’), as the client’s shield is first and foremost focused on herself and her present pain. Whatever the interpretation of the strategy may be, what is crucial is to explain how this self-protection is achieved. In this case, a present feeling is shifted to the past and is told in a rather detached style instead of being enacted. To use Benveniste’s famous distinction (Benveniste, 1959), what the client says is an histoire that finds it hard to become discours. In narrativization there is an ‘I, not-here, not-now’ vs. an actualization or focalization on the ‘I-here-now’, which indeed the analyst tries to restore. This type of shield was pointed out by Labov and Fanshel (1977: 336) under the label ‘narrative response’. The authors identified it as one of the typical mitigation strategies used by the anorexic girl (Rhoda) they based their work on. Let’s consider the following example: 14)

C. e poi: dall’85 all’87 i due anni diciamo in cui: stavo male ma non: per altri versi ma non così male come sto adesso sono comunque riuscita a continuare a lavorare mi hanno cambiato la respo*nsabilità+ T. *adesso sta male?+ in questo momento? C. be’ adesso io sono qua e sono entrata per degli accertamenti: ulteriori= T. =no dico adesso ora qui. C. sì.

114

Mitigation

T. sta male? C. be’ - certo. T. perché parla con me? C. no: non mi dà nessun fastidio parlare con lei. (PsS) C. and then from 85 to 87 the two years when: let’s say I felt bad but not in other respects but not so bad as I feel now anyway I managed to keep working they changed my du*ties+ T. *now are you feeling bad?+ at the moment? C. well now I’m here and I’ve come in for further tests= T. =no I mean now at this very moment here. C. yes. T. are you feeling bad? C. well - of course. T. because you are speaking to me? C. no: I don’t mind speaking to you. Example 14) is suitable to close this section because it is a transitional case between deictic shields, particularly ‘objectivization’, and topical shields, which will be discussed in the next section. The main difference between them is the following: while deictic shields, i.e. shields based on the negation of one of the aspects of the deictic triad ‘I-here-now’, work by an overall substitution (e.g. one utterance is replaced by another bearing a ‘not-I’, ‘not-here’, ‘not-now’ feature), quotational and topical shields operate on ‘something’ which actually appears on the discourse surface. In other words, they both operate on observable linguistic objects. While deictic mitigation is in absentia – deictic shields are in paradigmatic opposition to other unmarked choices in a given context – quotational and topical mitigation are in praesentia, as is the case with bushes and hedges. Let us consider what this ‘something’ – these ‘observable linguistic objects’ – may be.

3.4. OTHER STRATEGIES OF MITIGATION: QUOTATIONAL SHIELDS AND TOPICAL SHIELDS My aim in the present section is to list some discourse strategies in which mitigation can be inferred as a second-degree/side-effect. The operations I have in mind are of two basic types: a) the suspension of literal interpretation, and b) the strategic backgrounding of a topic, obtained

Pragmatics of mitigation: bushes, hedges and shields

115

through specific textual devices. 8 I have called the former ‘quotational shields’ and the latter ‘topical shields’. In the case of quotational shields, a meta-level is introduced by means of expressions like fra virgolette (‘in quotes’), which are used by the speaker to explicitly distance her/himself from what s/he is saying. In other words, the signaled suspension of the literal meaning implies that the speaker’s subscription – both cognitive and emotive – to her/his utterance, or part of it, is suspended too. Similar effects are obtained through the use of markers such as per così dire (‘so to speak’) and diciamo così (‘let’s say’). It can be envisaged a sort of continuum from: a) true quotational cases; b) cautionary markers evoking a meta-level, e.g. per così dire (‘so to say’), and c) bushes, e.g. quasi (‘almost’), praticamente (‘practically’), etc. All these devices can be placed along a scale of decreasing transparency (cf. Hölker, 1988). In order to clarify the differences between them, it may be useful to observe again that class a) is linked to a yes-no property of communication in general terms, namely literality, while class b) signals metacommunicatively what can be seen as a non-complete fulfillment of Austin’s (1962) first B-condition, namely, the condition which prescribes that the procedure must be executed correctly. Finally, devices referred to under c), without making reference to a meta-level, signal what can be seen as a nonfulfillment of Austin’s (1962) second B-condition, namely, the condition which prescribes that the procedure must be executed completely. This latter can be seen as related to the scalar parameter ‘precision of the propositional content’ (Bazzanella et al., 1991). Topical shields comprise the strategic backgrounding of a topic whose occurrence is expected – typically an embarrassing, unpleasant, thorny topic – through a decreased value assigned to the interactional parameter that can be labeled ‘relevance of a topic for the present purposes of the exchange’. Topical shields are a particular case of topical action regarding the topic management in conversation (cf. Bublitz, 1988). They can be further subdivided into strategic digressions, and strategic examples (on examples, cf. Caffi and Hölker, 1995). Strategic digressions correspond to the rhetoric notion of aversio a materia or digressio (cf. 8

As pointed out by Bublitz (1988: 135), topic shifts are widely acknowledged as suitable means to avoid disagreement and conflict in discourse. For instance, Maynard (1980) adds ‘topic change’ to Pomerantz’ (1978) list of linguistic means considered as preventive or therapeutic measures against disagreement. Bublitz (1988: 134) associates the action of ‘breaking off the topic’ with politeness strategies aimed at avoiding taboos or face-threats for the recipient. In other words, the author highlights the mitigating potential of the strategic manipulation of topical structure. This connection is also identified by Brown and Levinson (1978), who, however, only mention it when dealing with ‘relevance hedges’. The latter do not comply with Grice’s maxim of Relevance, since they introduce a digression together with some sort of apology for it (ibid.: 173-74; cf. 2.1.2.). Psycho-pathology studies which will be discussed in Chapter 4 make it possible to shed light on the other side of the sword. In fact, besides being connected to the intentional protection of both speaker and recipient, topical shift is also linked to disqualification of the enacted communication and can be a way to deny the other and her/his utterance. As we will see in the next chapter (cf. 4.8.), topic change, together with the lack of uptake signals on the part of the hearer, is one of the parameters involved in Sluzki et al.’s (1967) transactional disqualification.

116

Mitigation

Lausberg, 1967: §434), where the mechanism at work is the ‘lateralization’ of a topic. This is obtained through the use of connectives such as tra l’altro (‘by the way’, ‘what’s more’, ‘besides’) or per caso (‘incidentally’, ‘by any chance’) as in example 15) below: 15)

D. ha avuto per caso qualche altra gravidanza che si è interrotta spontaneamente così o no?= P. =no. (PsV, TR18) D. have you accidentally/incidentally had any other pregnancies with a miscarriage or not?= P. =no.

Example 15) sounds funny to an Italian speaker because of the ambiguity of the scope of the Italian mitigator per caso (similar to the German zufällig / zufälligerweise), which is another passe-partout downgrader like un attimo. Each of the two possible English translations selects only one of the two simultaneous possibilities in Italian. The former, ‘accidentally’ (i.e. ‘by any chance’), is a bush since it has at its scope the propositional content. The latter, ‘incidentally’ (i.e. ‘by the way’), has at its scope the whole question, presented as a side topic in a hypothetical hierarchy of topics. In this latter case, the device per caso realizes a topical shield in which the inferrable mitigating effect is obtained through the ‘lateralization’ of the topic. Clearly, the topic itself is extremely delicate and both positively and negatively facethreatening for the patient, although in such an institutionalized context the therapist is entitled to be somewhat intrusive and to redefine the usual boundaries of ‘negative politeness’ (cf. Brown and Levinson, 1987). Having recognized this, however, we also have to explain how the speaker manages both to ask an embarrassing question and to protect the addressee’s face. These conflicting goals are simultaneously pursued by the use of the co-textual shield, which introduces the topic and at the same time downgrades its relevance and urgency in the context. Strategic examples are those cases where again the parameter which is reduced is the ‘relevance of the topic for the present purposes of the exchange’. Crucially, this reduction amounts to a contrast with the expected, preferred choice in that specific context. The mechanism by which this reduction is achieved is the paradigmatization of the topic, obtained through the use of connectives such as ad esempio, per esempio (‘for example’, ‘for instance’), as in 16) below: 16)

C. va be’ problemi in casa: li ho sempre avuti quindi: T. che problemi ci sono? C. va be’. ad esempio c’è mio papà che: *ogni tanto beve+. (PsS, TR19)

Pragmatics of mitigation: bushes, hedges and shields

117

C. well as to problems at home: I’ve always had them so: T. what are the problems? C. well for instance there is: my father who *sometimes drinks+. Here mitigation is obtained by downgrading the ‘topical relevance’ dimension. Basically, this mechanism works as follows: a topic is included in a paradigm of possibilities rather than being presented in a hierarchy. From a relational point of view, downgrading the relevance of a topic implicitly means downgrading the emotive salience of the topic for the speaker in that particular communicative situation. If the topic is actually recognizable as salient in that context, as is in 16) the topic of the father’s alcohol addiction (further mitigated by the bush ogni tanto, ‘sometimes’), its backgrounding triggers an implicature concerning the unwillingness on the part of the speaker to handle it. 9 There is a clear similarity between this type of shields and the rhetorical figure of reticentia, although the former activates a textual dimension that is not necessarily involved in reticence. To sum up, topical shields are the surface device that de-intensify the interactional parameter of topical relevance, which is connected by implicature with the parameter of emotive salience of a topic. In other words, the fact that a topic is given a limited textual salience – since it is either ‘lateralized’, or set in a paradigm of equipollent possibilities – enables us to infer that such a topic is of a minor emotive salience to the speaker in the given context. Now, if in that context or stage of interaction (i.e. in a given co-text or sequential structure) that topic is in fact both textually and emotively salient, and dealing with it in that slot represents the preferred choice, the topic organization action will be interpreted as strategically motivated and can be defined as a type of mitigation.

3.5. CONCLUSIONS The examples discussed in this chapter confirm the hypothesis that mitigation affects various linguistic levels and involves different interactional dimensions, with a number of repercussions on the management of discourse responsibilities, from both a cognitive and an emotive perspective. As to the hypothesis that mitigating devices focus on different scopes within the utterance, the threefold distinction I have adopted in this book has proved useful to illustrate different semantic and pragmatic aspects that can be modified by mitigation. From a relational perspective, some light has been cast on the connection between types of 9

The backgrounding of the topic is also ‘multimodal’ in that it is also achieved by means of prosody, as the relevant part of the turn is pronounced in a lower voice.

118

Mitigation

mitigation and their potential relational impacts. As we have seen, inferrable effects of mitigating devices include both instrumental and relational aspects, which can be either congruent and mutually reinforcing or somehow conflicting. The issue of the links between such aspects will be specifically addressed in the next chapter where psychological categories will be examined. In conclusion, mitigators mitigate because they manage speech act responsibility in different ways. In the case of bushes, what is weakened is the subscription to the proposition; in the case of hedges, what is weakened is the endorsement of the illocution; in the case of shields, what is avoided is the self-ascription of the utterance, which is ascribed to another source or displaced to another situation. While bushes and hedges are scalar devices – i.e. they work along a scale of degrees of epistemic commitment to the proposition and degrees of endorsement of one of the scalar dimensions of illocution respectively – shields are yes-no devices (e.g. ‘I’/’non-I’, ‘now/nonnow’, etc.) that are centered on the core of the utterance act, its deictic origin, the formal support of subjectivity (cf. Benveniste, 1970; cf. 1.3.). Furthermore, while bushes and hedges work in praesentia, i.e. they are lexicalized expressions, shields operate in absentia, by substitution. What is involved in shields is not a downgrading of the quality of some interactional scalar dimension, but, at a more abstract level, an emotive clash between cotextually and contextually bounded expectations and the actual choice. The rhetorical categories that are closest to bushes and hedges are euphemism, litotes, understatement and periphrasis, whereas the closest psychological categories are immediacy (cf. Wiener and Mehrabian, 1968), disqualification (cf. Haley, 1959), equivocation (cf. Beavin Bavelas et al., 1990) and some of the emotive devices listed in Caffi and Janney (1994b), particularly those of specificity, evidentiality, and volitionality (cf. Chapter 4). The rhetorical categories that are closest to deictic and quotational shields are enallage, reticence, aversio ab oratore (which can be shaped as sermocinatio, ethopeia; cf. Lausberg, 1967: §432): in those cases the speaker detaches from her/himself and put her/his speech in someone else’s mouth. Also the rhetorical category of aversio ab auditoribus, apostrophe, (Lausberg, 1967: §441) can be seen as a deictic shield: the speaker detaches her/himself from the hearers and addresses someone else, typically an imaginary audience. The closest psychological categories are the following: disqualification of the ‘I’ and ‘you’ component of the message (cf. Haley, 1959), avoidance strategies (cf. Lewin, 1935), what traditional psychoanalysis views as the defense mechanisms at work in ‘resistance’, and proximity devices (cf. Caffi and Janney, 1994b; cf. Chapter 4). Finally, topical shields can be connected to the rhetorical category of aversio a materia, or digressio (cf. Lausberg, 1967: §434) and the psychological category of disqualification of the component ‘in this context’. Quotational and topical shields exhibit the strategic mitigating potential of discourse texture, thereby offering new themes for further inquiry on the visibility

Pragmatics of mitigation: bushes, hedges and shields

119

of the speaking subject. Table 3.1. summarizes possible correspondences between rhetorical, psychological, and pragmatic categories. The psychological categories will be discussed in Chapter 4. These correspondences, however tentative, can be considered as possible non generic starting points for future research aiming at connecting fields which have for too long been unrelated. This research should rediscover the unity of our knowledge about our words, ourselves, and our relationships with others that ancient rhetoric set up at its very outset. Making these links explicit and proving that they are synergically explicative of pragmatic mechanisms in real interaction is a major goal of the next chapters of this work.

120

Mitigation

Table 3.1. Rhetorical, psychological and pragmatic categories Rhetorical categories Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1958); Lausberg (1967)

Immediacy Wiener and Mehrabian (1968) denotative specificity indicating devices

periphrasis euphemism understatement negative opposite (negatio contrarii)

selective emphasis indicating devices

litotes rhetorical questions

modification indicating devices

politeness formulas

automatic phrasal indicating devices

enallage of persons aversio ab oratore (sermocinatio)

Disqualification Haley (1959); Beavin Bavelas (1985); Sluzki et al. (1967)

non ‘am saying something’

bushes

non ‘I’

hedges

non ‘I’ agent-object indicating devices

non ‘you’

aversio ab auditoribus (apostrophe)

enallage of tenses

Mitigation Caffi (1999a; 2001)

actantial shields shields of objectivization

temporal indicating devices

aversio

non ‘in this context’

aversio a materia (digressio)

transactional disqualification evasion

shields of narrativization quotational shields of fictionalization topical shields (of lateralization)

4 MITIGATION AND EMOTIVE COMMUNICATION: STEPS TOWARD A PSYCHOSTYLISTIC APPROACH HAMLET: Sir, I cannot ROSENCRANTZ: What, my lord? HAMLET: Make you a wholesome answer. Hamlet, III, II.

4.0. INTRODUCTION As pointed out in Chapter 1, mitigation markers are a subcategory of linguistic markers that meet relational and practical needs in conversation and function importantly in identity maintenance (Giles et al., 1979: 351). In particular, mitigation, in more ways than one, affects the emotive profile of the interaction. The question to be asked is now: What are the links between mitigation and emotion in everyday interaction? In this chapter I shift attention to this question, regarding mitigation as a general pragmatic-stylistic category for the mutual cognitive and emotional adjustment of speaker and hearer. This very definition forces us to face the problem of the role of emotion in communication which will be dealt with from different perspectives in the following sections. 1 The more general question behind the present chapter is the following: in a given interaction, how can we trust that others’ feelings are not too distant from our own? To rephrase this question in pragmatic terms, as constant interpreters of messages in interaction, how do we decipher others’ feelings, and how can we count on the fact that others will be able 1

In this chapter, I will use the terms ‘affect’ and ‘emotion’ interchangeably. I am aware of the fact that, in so doing, some important theoretical distinctions in social, cognitive, and clinical psychology will be blurred. On the other hand, similarly simplistic uses of linguistic categories are found in these fields when linguistic phenomena are dealt with as well. Oversimplification, however unfortunate, is to some extent unavoidable when entering disciplinary fields different from our own. For a preliminary discussion of the terminological and conceptual distinctions between ‘feeling’, ‘affect’, and ‘emotion’, cf. Caffi and Janney (1994b: 327-328).

122

Mitigation

to decipher ours? There are of course many ways to answer a question like this. One way would be to start from the consideration that in our ‘normal’ communicative lives, we tend to assume a certain similarity between our own inner selves and the inner selves of others. This assumption breaks down in pathological communication. In many different pathologies the ‘emotive capacity’, to use Caffi and Janney’s (1994b: 327 ff.) phrase, is impaired. Schizophrenic patients, for instance, suffer from an incapacity of empathy, which is basically an inability to identify themselves with others and adopt others’ points of view. This empathic disability surfaces in misuses (or non-uses) of mitigation (and results in behavior like that of Piaget’s egocentric child (cf. 1.3.3.)). In an important contribution to psychoanalytic theory, Heinz Kohut defines empathy as a form of “vicarious introspection”: 2 The inner world cannot be observed with the aid of our sensory organs. Our thoughts, wishes, feelings, and fantasies cannot be seen, smelled, heard, or touched. They have no existence in physical space, and yet they are real, and we can observe them as they occur in time: through introspection in ourselves, and through empathy (i.e., vicarious introspection) in others. (Kohut, 1959: 459)

This definition opens the way for a possible conceptualization of the connection between outer and inner world. My major concern here, however, is not with empathy per se but with the linguistic means by which empathy is realized, and with the following important point: it may be argued that thus far mitigation has been mainly seen as the linguistic realization of empathy. But this view, however justified it may seem to be in view of current research findings in the field about positive politeness, is reductive, inasmuch as it blurs the essential double nature of mitigation and its paradoxical core. As a matter of fact, mitigation can often be given opposite interpretations and can be seen as functioning in both empathic and antiempathic directions. Inasmuch as it aims at controlling the ongoing interaction, mitigation implicitly marks the speech act in which it occurs as potentially problematic, thus running the risk of being anti-empathic. In particular, mitigation is often linked to forms of indirectness, reticence, and evasive messages. This link, though recognized in early studies on mitigation (cf. Fraser, 1980), still lacks a multidisciplinary treatment that reconstructs its conceptual underpinning and its practical functioning. Some steps toward a treatment of this kind, which integrates pragmatic, stylistic and psychological insights, are advanced in what follows. My own approach to the question of the role of mitigation in ‘emotive communication’ (cf. Caffi and Janney, 1994b) is operational and can be formulated with the following questions: are mitigation markers and strategies connected to emotive markers and strategies? If so, in what sense? In the present chapter, to start answering these questions, I will approach the 2

A discussion of the theoretical implications of these remarks is beyond the scope of this chapter.

Emotive aspects

123

mitigation issue ‘from the outside’, as it were, from the viewpoints of various psychological disciplines. In the next few sections, I will first discuss the link between mitigation and deresponsibilization as a possible reason for the paradoxical double nature of mitigation. After some general remarks on conceptualizations of language and affect, I will discuss some recent conceptualizations of emotive features of communication in pragmatics, and then briefly introduce some concepts borrowed from experimental psychology, social psychology, and clinical psychology of communication: i.e., notions of ‘involvement’, ‘immediacy’, and ‘disqualification’, and the Freudian concept of ‘undoing’ (Ungeschehenmachen). These conceptual categories, which can be seen as mutually explicative, represent potential bridges between pragmatics and psychology. In some of the following sections, the direction of the bridging will be from pragmatics to psychology (cf. Sections 4.1., 4.2., 4.3., 4.4.); in others, it will be from psychology to pragmatics (cf. Sections 4.1.1., 4.5., 4.6., 4.7., 4.8., 4.9.). Although the notions above come from different areas of psychological research, they are all useful, I think, for a better understanding of interactional mechanisms. Some of the mechanisms they capture operate in dramatically systematic ways in pathological exchanges but are also intermittently observable in everyday interaction. As is well known, there are not sharp boundaries between ordinary and pathological communication. On the contrary, they share some patterns, which can be categorized in terms of mitigation (on the ‘everyday’ side), or in terms of disqualification, equivocation, negation and the like (on the ‘pathological’ side). The point most relevant to my line of reasoning is that these mechanisms all contribute, to some extent, to weaken the speaker’s responsibilities. This, it can be argued, is the common thread binding the individual mechanisms and connecting these, in turn, to pragmatic mitigation strategies. As we will see, my hypothesis about the ‘deresponsibilization’ trait lying at the very core of mitigation is confirmed by the results of research in independent fields, such as studies on schizophrenic communication. The conceptual path that I will follow in this chapter (which also takes ‘the other edge of the sword’ into account – i.e., the different ways mitigation can work in an anti-empathic direction) is hoped to help shed light on the pervasive, fuzzy component represented by emotive communication, and highlight some notions that allow us to preserve, if only partially and reductionistically, its intrinsic dynamic, indexical quality.

4.1. STYLE AS A PSYCHOLINGUISTIC ISSUE: THE ROLE OF EMOTION One of the theoretical premises of this book is that style conceptually links linguistic and psychological phenomena, as first suggested by Benveniste (1971: 106) in his discussion of unconscious’ symbolism. Throughout the book I will assume that a close connection exists

124

Mitigation

between linguistic and communicative choices on the one hand, and expressions of, and hypotheses about, speakers’ feelings on the other. This assumption can be reformulated by observing that style, viewed as some type of modulation of a given utterance in a given context, is not determined solely by sociolinguistic factors (cf. Chapter 1). Being the way actions are performed (cf. 2.3.), style is rather a responsive interface between competing dimensions of influence on the performer. Stylistic choices can be viewed as the surfacing traces of monitoring processes shaped by emotive features of interaction. Stylistic choices can be regarded from different perspectives, and some of these can be fruitfully integrated. From a linguistic point of view, they can be thought of as ‘evoked effects’ (effets par évocation) (Bally, 1970 [1909]: 203-249; cf. 1.6.), or as ‘contextualization cues’ (Gumperz, 1982a; cf. 1.8.). Once a given rhetorical threshold is exceeded, a configuration of stylistic traits can be identified as a ‘figure of speech’ and be classified as litotes, understatement, euphemism, periphrasis, reticence, etc. From a psychological point of view, stylistic choices can be seen as cues that authorize hearers to make inferences about speakers’ positive or negative attitudes toward communication or its components (cf. Section 4.5. ff.). For the hearer, mitigation can be a starting point for inferring non-immediacy. The hearer, that is, can perceive mitigation strategies as indicating the will on the part of the speaker to control the interaction and reduce her/his engagement, by eliciting inferences of a) cognitive non-commitment and b) emotional detachment. At this stage, it is worthwhile clarifying two general methodological points: first, in this book, psychological aspects of metapragmatic competence are dealt with from a ‘naïve’ perspective close to an ethnomethodological perspective. The assumption of the primary relevance of folk categories is inherent in this perspective. By ‘folk categories’ I mean categories that are adopted by competent members of a social group to make sense of actions performed by their partners and to form hypotheses about partners’ goals and strategies for reaching these goals (cf. von Cranach et al., 1980). Bearing this in mind, my analysis moves from the discourse surface to underlying ‘layers’ of authorized inferences. 3 Second, the aim of 3

I borrow the notion of layer from Piro’s (1967) interesting work on schizophrenic language. Sergio Piro (1967: 139) discusses the distinction between referential meaning and emotive meaning and maintains that, while the former can be seen as operating at different ‘levels’, the latter can be analyzed into ‘layers’. While in my opinion it is necessary to go beyond the dichotomy ‘referential-emotive’ and think of emotive communication as a complex, multi-faceted, dimension interacting with other dimensions, it is useful to retain the notion of the layer. In fact, it is important to draw a distinction, at least in principle, between the linguistic concept of meaning, which can be analyzed at different levels, and the extended interactional concept of meaning, which can be analyzed at different layers, for instance, the layer of conventional implicatures. The interactional construction of meaning can be described as a process affecting different layers, rather than different levels, from the most conventionalized and stable ones to the most blurred and subtle effets de sens. Mitigation is a bridging category which connects layers of communication (rather than levels of meaning), whose interpretation on the part of the hearer goes along with inferential processes. The way in which this chain-process can

Emotive aspects

125

analysis is not to speculate about the causes of people’s actions – which are unfathomable in any case – but to describe their probable interactional effects and the actual linguistic means used to obtain these. Against this background, issues of sincerity and questions of ‘true’ intentions are out of the picture. In this connection, the case of ‘expressive’ illocutionary acts whose sincerity felicity condition is merely that they are appropriate to the situation in which they are uttered are particularly instructive. Apologies and thanks, for instance, ‘take effect’ as illocutionary acts (Austin, 1975 [1962]: 117), whether they are sincere or not, simply due to the conventionality of the rituals they trigger when performed (cf. Norrick, 1978). Interestingly enough, conventionality is crucial in social psychological perspectives as well. The identitybuilding process realized by means of speech includes emotive factors related in part to what social psychologists call ‘expression management’. As already said, when analyzing this process, it is necessary to adopt the perspective of the ‘interpreter’ who is entitled to infer immediacy or non-immediacy from textual cues. In this way, the vicious circle of subjective, idiosyncratic, ever-changing strategies can be avoided (one could pretend to feel involved and weigh the effects of such attitude, or try not to show involvement but then reveal one’s feelings, etc.). Without dwelling on the matter further here, I will tacitly make these assumptions throughout the book. Returning to the main point, the upshot of the psychological studies referred to in this chapter is that many communication mechanisms related to mitigation are used specifically to modulate emotive distances and regulate the temperature of interaction. These mechanisms will be discussed in the next few sections. 4.1.1. Mitigation as an empathic strategy: attunement (Stern, 1985) As already noted, Leo Spitzer, in his ante litteram pragmatic study of Italian spoken language (Spitzer, 1922), introduces the notion of entgegenkommen, or ‘going toward the other’ in dialogue. Spitzer subtly describes expressive markers that indicate tact, consideration, and respect, and that today would be considered positive politeness strategies. At the same time such markers signal the speaker’s effort ‘to go toward the other’, however, Spitzer notes, they can also be interpreted as lacking naturalness and denoting calculation and manipulation on the speaker’s side. Thus Spitzer’s conceptualization beautifully captures the ambivalence of stylistic markers, and mitigation among them. This is not the place to indulge in a discussion of Spitzer’s important contribution to politeness theories. 4 What matters here is rather the following question: can we find a counterpart to Spitzer’s stylistic notion of entegegenkommen in the field of psychology? I think that this can be found in Stern’s notion of ‘attunement’ be depicted has already been sketched in the discussion on hedges in Chapter 2 and will be further illustrated in Chapter 5. 4 A discussion of Spitzer’s (1922) model of politeness can be found in Caffi (2005).

126

Mitigation

(Stern, 1985). The notion of attunement deserves to be briefly introduced at this point. Stern’s work belongs to a research field which is of great potential interest for pragmatics. It is aimed at constructing a developmental psychological theoretical framework in which a relationally-oriented psychoanalytical perspective is founded on the empirical analysis of directly observed ‘child-mother’s’ behavior. In his approach, the child-mother is regarded as a couple. From direct observation of this couple, a kind of mothers’ behavior emerges that Stern calls “affect attunement” (Stern, 1985: 140). If it may appear at first sight that affect attunement is close to imitative behavior, they are actually different; attunement, he claims, is a special category of behavior. Stern defines this new category as follows: Affect attunement […] is the performance of behaviors that express the quality of feeling of a shared affect state without imitating the exact behavioral expression of the inner state […] The reason attunement behaviors are so important as separate phenomena is that true imitation does not permit the partners to refer to the internal state. It maintains the focus of attention upon the forms of external behaviors. Attunement behaviors, on the other hand, recast the event and shift the focus of attention to what is behind the behavior, to the quality of feeling that is being shared. (Stern, 1985: 142)

I won’t dwell here on Stern’s ideas and their complex relationship with psychoanalysis (especially Melanie Klein’s approach) and the conceptual paradigm of attachment (especially Bowlby’s approach). More important, in the present connection, is the relevance of an adapted, revised, and extended notion of attunement for the integrated approach to emotive monitoring in interaction. The ability to achieve attunement, the “experience of feeling-connectedness, of being in attunement with another. It feels like an unbroken line” (ibid.: 157), is vital in order to avoid breaking down the conversational pact. The use of the notion of attunement in this book will differ from Stern’s original notion in two main respects. First, due to his interest in the early infancy, Stern has nonverbal behavior in mind – for example, the matching of the intensity level of the child’s voice by the mother’s body movements. Here, attunement is “a recasting, a restatement of a subjective state […] by way of non-verbal metaphor and analogue” (ibid.: 161). Second, Stern draws a distinction between empathy and attunement: empathy, he says, unlike attunement, requires “the mediation of cognitive processes” (ibid.: 145). In the present treatment this distinction will be overridden by my lack of concern in defining what empathy is: what is important for my purposes is rather to set up operational tools to deal with linguistic downgrading phenomena that can be seen as attunement-related. With these caveats, a pragmatic version of Stern’s notion may lead to an enhanced understanding of mitigation mechanisms and prove to be useful in the analysis of real encounters. In applying this notion to a pragmatically-oriented description of therapeutic interaction, I have drawn a distinction between topical attunement, which is exemplified by (re)formulations, and stylistic attunement, in which mitigation plays a key role (cf. Caffi, 2001;

Emotive aspects

127

Caffi, 2002; 5.8.1., 5.8.2.). Once we give prominence to the intersubjective sharing of affect (cf. Stern, 1985: 138 ff.), the category of attunement seems to be a core candidate for explaining mitigation. In this connection, if we assign a fundamental role to affect in communicative processes, the next step is to take the direction ‘ego vs. the inner world’ into account, which has so far been largely neglected in the literature (cf. 1.1.). To begin with, we can assume that mitigation strategies can serve both emotional and emotive personal needs (cf. Section 4.4.1. below). That is, as far as emotional needs are concerned, they may help speakers both achieve consistent inner states, and enhance their self-effectiveness (cf., among others, Leary, 2003). Although the intentional and strategic emotive dimension of communication is certainly the main focus of a pragmatic approach, the deeper layers involved in the production of interactional meaning have certainly a bearing in the production of interactional meaning. Significantly, there seems to be growing interest in both cognitive and social psychology in what can be labeled the emotional dimension of communication. That the spontaneous emotional dimension of communication is intertwined with the intentional, strategic emotive dimension is a common experience which is beginning to be recognized and conceptualized in different fields of research. In particular, recent research in social psychology provides evidence of various ways in which this intertwining takes place in interaction. For instance, Clark and Brissette (2003) discuss the correlation between intimacy (called ‘closeness’ by the authors) and expressions of emotion, which is one among the many possible intersections between emotive and emotional dimensions of relationships. Starting from the assumption that “relationships can be distinguished from one another based on the degree of responsibility that we feel for one another’s needs,” Clark and Brissette (2003: 828) argue: The more communal the relationship, the more we should express emotions such as fear, sadness, and happiness and experience and express emotions such as guilt and empathic sadness and happiness. Furthermore, once these emotions are expressed, our partners ought to react to them more positively. Such positive reactions should include such things as listening carefully and sympathetically to our emotional expressions, providing help in the case of our negative emotion, sharing positive emotions, and welcoming our empathic sadness as well as guilt. (Clark and Brissette, 2003: 828)

It is easy to see the role played by mitigation in the communicative processes mentioned by the authors. How the interplay between emotive and emotional dimensions can be handled from a pragmatic standpoint is a question that remains open. In fact, it is not part of my purpose, and not the task of pragmatics, to explore relationships between outer expressions of emotion and inner experienced emotional states. This does not mean, however, that we should not take this important double-orientation of the emotive capacity into account. Actually, if we ignore the fact that this capacity functions in both directions (toward both the inner and outer

128

Mitigation

worlds) we miss an important opportunity to get the whole picture of what happens in interaction. I am well aware that this point may be challenged. The resistance against any approach designed to account for our intuitive appreciation of this point is strong. However, as already noted at the outset of this book, pragmatics can no longer afford to dismiss the importance of affect and its influences on linguistic choices. Since no fully adequate pragmatic theoretical account of the role of the emotions in the communicative processes is presently available, we can only glean insights from other fields of research which have a bearing on mitigation phenomena and start outlining some steps of what may be, if not a comprehensive theory, at least a consistent framework. To add another piece to the picture sketched so far, drawing again on empirical developmental psychology, the notion of ‘prototypical expectations’ developed in psychoanalytic theories of attachment it is also worth mentioning (for a review, cf. Ammaniti and Stern, 1996). Prototypical expectations are anticipatory strategies derived from ‘working models’ (cf. Bowlby, 1973) based on interactional experiences and instances of failed relational attunement. From the very first stages in the life of an individual, the main function of prototypical expectations is to avoid the “disorganization originating from a lack of interactive coordination” (Seganti, 1995: 66; my translation, C.C.). Seganti (1995) refers to Stern’s research on prototypical expectations in mother-child relationships. At a first phase, if the child feels that the adult’s expectations are too high, s/he will prefer to withdraw from the interaction. This phase of withdrawal is followed by a phase when complex representations of interactive expectations begin to be constructed. These expectations, which pave the way for negotiating processes, can be seen as: pairs of opposites, like ‘stop and go’. The central adaptive element of these kinds of basic expectations of the self (which, in the first development stage, is referred to as ‘emerging’ by Stern) seems to be precisely the setting up of two different modes for achieving congruence of inner states. One mode is based on commitment to the interaction, while the other mode realizes non-commitment… Sequences of instructions like ‘stop and go’ seem to be organized in a wide variety of complex representations, ranging from ‘stop for a little while and start again’ to ‘go on without stopping’, etc. These categories mark the experience of subsequent emotional and verbal relational developments. (Seganti, 1995: 67; my translation, C.C.)

These remarks make it possible to envisage, at least in principle, connections between interactional and pragmatic perspectives on conversational adaptation in an integrated framework. In particular, they are consistent with the idea that modulations of linguistic forms can index adjustments of emotive distances in both attenuating and reinforcing directions. Further, the acquisition of what has been called here ‘metapragmatic competence’ seems to be primarily associated with developmental processes by which the child learns to modulate

Emotive aspects

129

distances. These complex processes by which the child learns to negotiate meanings and, in Stern’s terms, learns ‘to be with’ in a relationship, involve both cognition and emotion. Moreover, they lend themselves easily to being described in terms of regulatory messages aimed at the attunement of both emotional and cognitive interactional distances. Such adjustments surface interactionally in modulations of different kinds of mitigated and reinforced choices. What can be called the acquisition of modulation, which replaces binary interactional patterns, seems to play a remarkably important role in the development of adaptive, relational capacity. Metapragmatic competence requires (and reflects) knowledge of both the world and one's language and makes it possible for participants in interaction to assign meanings to given social actions. In addition, it reflects knowledge of the self and is connected to self-awareness (cf. Leary, 2003). The emotive capacity plays a key role in metapragmatic competence as the interface between social emotive dimensions of interaction on the one hand, and individual emotional dimensions on the other – in other words, in any given interactional context, it mediates between the participants’ outer and inner worlds. In this chapter I am trying to bring together the convergent insights of different fields of research in order to deepen our understanding of this interface and its linguistic repercussions. 4.1.2.

The other edge of the sword: mitigation as an anti-empathic strategy

As said earlier, mitigation can be given opposite interpretations and therefore has a paradoxical core. Ultimately, the paradoxical core of mitigation is but one instance of a general feature of human communication – whether we want to call it ‘analogic’ or something else – i.e. its pervasive ambivalence, which was well captured by classical rhetoric. This paradox may be explained in terms of Watzlawick et al.’s (1967) distinction between ‘analogic’ and ‘digital’ communication. As I have claimed elsewhere (cf. Caffi, 1990), the main benefit of mitigation, regardless of the many forms it may take, is the avoidance or attenuation of the speaker’s responsibility. This benefit is rooted in the ‘deniability’ of analogic communication. In the analogic mode, the speaker can, to a certain extent, retrace her/his steps and simultaneously ‘undo’ what s/he is doing. This benefit, however, is counterbalanced by a cost: the risk of a clash between the instrumental and identity functions of discourse (cf. Chapter 1). The risk involved in using (not merely ritual) mitigation devices can be described as affecting two main levels along a quantitative scale. On the first level, the hearer may perceive cognitive and emotive distance. On the second level, the hearer may interpret a somehow equivocal or self-contradictory utterance as as sign that the speaker has metaphorically ‘left the field’. ‘Leaving the field’ is precisely the expression used by Beavin Bavelas to refer to speakers who opt for ‘equivocation’, which will be dealt with in Section 4.6. below. The only way to ‘leave the field’ while in fact continuing to play (i.e., the only way to

130

Mitigation

‘be there’ and ‘not be there’, or to ‘do’ and ‘undo’ at the same time) is precisely to produce ambiguous messages that can be assigned conflicting interpretations. At the first scalar level, an inference of non-immediacy may be elicited (cf. 4.5.), grounded on an inference of cognitive non-commitment. At the second level, what the hearer may infer is a form of ‘disqualification’ – which is a psychological category subsumed within the idea of incongruent behavior (cf. 4.7.). At either level, the hearer may infer a lack of naturalness and spontaneity on the part of the speaker. What is more, the speaker may infer that the speaker is using some kind of manipulative strategy to reach goals in a hidden agenda; and herein lies a problem: following Strawson (1964; cf. 2.2.2.), the speaker’s complex communicative intention may not actually involve the hearer making such an inference. On the contrary, in this case, the recognition on the part of the hearer of a complex (hidden) intention on the part of the speaker may even prevent the speech act from attaining its intended goal. If we adopt this kind of conceptualization, and accept the idea that not only the force, but also the intensity of an act must be acknowledged, we can see how mitigation could entail the risk of ‘doing’ and ‘undoing’ by the speaker in the same act. How this risk and the conflicting needs behind it can be neutralized in an actual communicative situation must be decided by the speaker against the background of what s/he assumes is appropriate, or the ‘right measure’, corresponding to the pršpon of classical rhetoric, in that particular exchange. Obviously, this varies across cultures, social groups, and communication codes, and within the latter, across specific activity types and speakers’ expectations about different types of linguistic events. Any natural language encodes very subtle stylistic nuances in linguistic structures that represent different realizations of the same illocutionary force. This is the case, for example, with different possible formulations of conventionally indirect requests, which may differ in nearly imperceptible ways. It is now widely accepted (after an initial ethnocentristic ‘universalistic’ stage of research) that such stylistic variations are culture-bound. Interethnic pragmatic research on politeness has proved that, for instance, what is regarded as polite for an American may be perceived as insincere by an Israeli (cf. Blum-Kulka, 1992). Moreover, if less obviously perhaps, so-called cultural ‘display rules’ also play a vital role in speakers’ decision about appropriate choices (cf. Ekman, 1973). 5 These are part and parcel of a given culture, are learned during the process of socialization, and interact with innate expressive plans. It is a well-recognized fact that emotion, in addition being spontaneously motivated by speakers’ subjective inner states, follows many subtle rules whose source is symbolic and whose function is to regulate the expression of the state the speaker intends to convey (cf. among others, Buck, 1984: 20). These rules change emotional expressions from spontaneous outbursts into intentional, goal-directed, 5

According to Ekman’s model, these rules can modify the emotive expression in four basic modes: a) intensification; b) de-intensification; c) neutralization (by showing indifference); d) and concealment (by dissimulation) of real emotion (cf. D’Urso and Trentin, 1992: 89-90).

Emotive aspects

131

culturally shaped, emotive moves. The point that is crucial to my line of reasoning is that these rules define not only which emotions are appropriate to which situations, but also in what forms and intensities these emotions must be conveyed. For this reason, in an integrated approach to language and affect, we need to consider not only intentional, conventionalized signals, but also less conventionalized cues. In particular, we have to look for those cues that are relevant to answering the following question: How near/far can we go to/from our interlocutors? Clearly, we have to bear in mind that ambivalence operates very subtly whenever stylistic variation is feasible. Apart from cases of unequivocal modulations – for example, cases of few very strong signals or many weak signals, which together form a cluster clearly aimed at reaching a specific effect, e.g. irony – a single choice can be given conflicting interpretations. To put it in rhetorical terms, antiphrastic tension, which is usually thought of as ambiguity (in its negative connotation), is a constitutive and pervasive feature of real communication. From an integrated pragmatic perspective, such tension is not simply an accident caused by a ‘flaw’ in the semiotic system ‘natural language’. On the contrary, and far from being a shortcoming, it is actually an important resource of the analogic part of that system responsible for the multifunctionality of its expressions. As Beavin Bavelas et al. remark: Communication has been studied mostly as it “should” be. For example, it should be effective, clear, persuasive, efficient, and noise-free. If it is not, then it should be improved, edited, or ignored as error. (Beavin Bavelas et al., 1990: 19)

This analogic, inherently ambivalent part of the system is linked to emotional and emotive aspects of communication in ways that have still to be clarified. Aware as we may be of the lack of an even remotely satisfactory account of these links, we can still venture some general remarks. A pragmatic way of thinking about emotive aspects of communication consists in seeing these as being traceable back to stylistic (micro-)phenomena or cues that instantiate cognitive-emotive monitoring processes on the part of the speaker and serve as starting points for contextual inferences on the part of the hearer. The umbrella term ‘mitigation’ includes the whole set of stylistic phenomena that contribute to the downgrading of utterances. Their pragmatic functions can only be assessed against the background of the ongoing interaction. Bearing this idea in mind, the present work is an attempt to find answers to a number of questions about these phenomena, in particular: what is their role in the identity-building process and in its negotiation? Are these cues comparable to emotive indicators? And, if so, in what sense? The question to be asked now is: how do these cues work in real interactions? These are all very general questions that need to be split into smaller ones and considered from the point of view of the addressee. In other words, we need to reconsider the issue of the speaker's intentions and inner states and re-read it as the issue of the effects the recipient

132

Mitigation

interpreting the utterance is authorized to infer from the cues provided in the message. In this vein, I will try to add further details to the general picture emerging from past studies of the emotive aspects of communication (cf., for instance, Caffi, 1992; Caffi and Janney, 1994b; Janney, 1996; Caffi, 2000; 2002).

4.2. ON THE CONCEPTUALIZATION OF EMOTION IN LINGUISTIC THEORIES A comprehensive survey of conceptualizations of emotion in modern linguistics is beyond my present goals. Instead, in this section, I will restrict myself to one matter of theoretical interest, namely the levels of analysis at which issues of affect have been dealt with in linguistic theories. We may start by noting that Black’s (1948: 112) assertion about “the lack of a consistent and coherent theory of ‘emotive meaning’” is basically still true. 6 Despite the growing number of studies devoted to ‘language and affect’, philosophical and linguistic theories still lack a systematic account of ‘emotive communication’, to use Caffi and Janney’s (1994b) label. The dichotomy between emotive meaning and referential meaning is still a convenient reification in most philosophical and linguistic research and does not help understand the mechanisms operating on the fuzzy periphery – to quote Stankiewicz (1964: 267) – where emotive dimensions of linguistic choice can be collocated. In most cases, linguistic research has marginalized the emotive dimension, regarding the expression of affect is either residual or completely absent (cf. Daneš, 1989), or confining emotive communicative functions to specific devices (for instance, ‘emotive’ suffixes). This marginalization seems to contradict the thought of a number of twentieth century authors who assigned a vital role to affect in linguistic theories. I am thinking here in particular of Bally (1965 [1925]; 1965 [1932]; 1970 [1909]), Bühler (1934), and the Prague school, who considered the emotive function as one of the main functions of language. Suffice it to mention here the following passage in the third Thesis of the 1929 Travaux:

6

In his more critical than propositive paper, Black (1948) focuses on the issue of literary works and, more in general, on the meanings of aesthetic objects. Black expresses dissatisfaction and disagreement with the proposals made by Richards (the philosopher who edited, together with Ogden, The meaning of meaning, 1949) and the way he, as well as other authors, has dealt with the issue of emotive meaning. Richards views emotive meaning from a dichotomous perspective, making a clear-cut distinction between emotive uses of language and referential, scientific uses of language. According to Black, this approach is one of the “venerable problems of the relations between ‘Heart and Mind’, Religion and Science, Faith and Reason, or the other antitheses that obfuscate philosophical discourse” (Black, 1948: 111).

Emotive aspects

133

Features important for the characterization of language are the intellectuality and the emotionality of language manifestations. Both these features either interpenetrate each other or one of them prevails over the other. (Prague Linguistic Circle, 1983 [1929]: 88; original emphasis)

If the model subject of linguistics traditionally has been emotionless, the model subject of psychology is traditionally speechless. In many psychological studies of affect, language is conceived as a static, lexicological notion without indexical or textual dimensions relevant to the emotional coloring of utterances or the interactive negotiation of interpersonal identities. The dominant psychological approach is essentialist in either an onomasiologic sense (e.g. ‘what is emotion x?’) or a semasiologic one (e.g. ‘what do we call fear?’), and varies depending on the relative importance assigned by scholars to cognitive appraisal. 7 Even approaches that can be considered closer to pragmatics, for instance Fiehler’s (1990), make a neat distinction between emotion expression (Emotionsausdruck) and emotion thematization (Emotionsthematisierung). In Fiehler’s approach, the former is seen as the signaling of emotions by nonverbal means, e.g. prosody and kinesics (ibid.: 100 ff.), while the latter is said to occur whenever emotive experience (Erleben) is communicated verbally and becomes the main topic of interaction (which is typical of a self-disclosure). In this type of approach, affect is hence either conveyed by para- or nonverbal means, or, if language is involved, relegated to the status of a discourse topic. From such a perspective, the pervasively emotive character of linguistic communication is lost and out of the picture. Unfortunately, a comprehensive study of the ways modern linguistics has dealt with affect is still to be conducted. In particular, the central role that foundational works in twentieth century linguistics, at least in principle, have assigned to affect, has not yet been fully recognized. Moreover, current linguistic approaches to affect still lack an adequate general theoretical background and a practical descriptive methodology. This does not mean, however, that the issue of how emotion is expressed in language has been completely ignored. Rather, it has been either marginalized or restricted to specific kinds of manifestations. At this stage, in order to enhance our metatheoretical awareness, it may be useful to ask which conceptual objects, at which level of description, have been labeled ‘emotive’ in modern reflection on language? The list that follows is just a first, sketchy answer:

7

x

Affect pertains to langage. One of the basic functions of language is the ‘emotive’ function. The most well-known proponents of this idea are, among others, Marty (1908), Bühler (1934), Jakobson (1960), and Halliday (1970).

x

Affect pertains to langue (not to parole). Indeed, langue is inherently ‘emotive’. This is the way Bally perceived langue, as opposed to the way Saussure perceived it.

For authors like Richard Lazarus, cognitive appraisal is a crucial feature of affect; for authors like Robert Zajonc, it is secondary.

134

Mitigation

According to Bally (1970 [1909]), langue, as expression of life, is inherently linked to subjectivity and affect. x

Affect pertains to the speech act as a type. ‘Emotive’ is a condition of the speech act. It is the expression of an inner state, as in Austin’s (1962) Gamma felicity condition or Searle’s (1975) sincerity condition. 8

x

Affect pertains to the speech act as a token. A contextualized act of speech is emotive in the sense of being ‘emotively loaded’. During a given encounter, the emotive aspects of an act or sequence of acts of speech can overlap with, and be integrated into, their cognitive and illocutionary features. Among the possibilities listed here, this latter is probably closest to a ‘pragmatic’ way of thinking about affect. In fact, such a conceptualization does not exclude other levels of analysis, but retraces them to specific contexts where heterogeneous parameters interact.

In the next few sections I will present some theoretical suggestions that may be useful in reconsidering affect at the different levels of analysis just mentioned. Meanwhile, a few points should be emphasized. As to the first level of analysis, that of language, it is worthwhile mentioning what Fairclough (1992: 64-65) calls the ‘identity function’. This function is related to the ways social identities are built into, and changed through, discourse. In particular, Fairclough says that: When one emphasizes a construction, the identity function of language begins to assume great importance, because the ways in which societies categorize and build identities for their members is a fundamental aspect of how they work, how power relations are imposed and exercised, how societies are reproduced and changed... Focusing on expression, on the other hand, has completely marginalized the identity function into a minor aspect of the interpersonal function. (Fairclough, 1992: 65)

In other words, the attention paid to the self in speech is flattened down to the concept of ‘expressiveness’. This finds its typical representation in the notion of the expressive/emotive function of language used to explain why people often formulate their messages differently to show different feelings or attitudes towards these. This perspective, however, does not account for the role of speech in the ongoing construction of the self, an issue that will be dealt with in 8

Heringer (1972) criticizes Austin’s (1962) claim that violations of Gamma felicity conditions make the speech act infelicitous without invalidating it. Heringer maintains that non-compliance with Gamma conditions may cause the speech act to be denied, backing his thesis with examples of promises and threats where Gamma conditions are crucial to the fulfillment of the corresponding speech act. Differently from Austin, Heringer states that Gamma conditions can sometimes be violated without making the act unhappy. This is the case, for example, in diplomatic language where perlocutionary aspects prevail over illocutionary ones, making the fulfillment of sincerity conditions irrelevant.

Emotive aspects

135

greater detail in the next few chapters. As to the level of langue, it was Bally who first pointed out the inherently subjective, affective character of a natural language. Bally’s (1970 [1909]) analysis of what he originally called ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ emotive means (i.e. lexical devices and syntactic devices respectively) is a landmark in linguistic thought. The mitigating devices mentioned in Chapter 2 and in Chapter 3, which will be further listed and discussed in Chapter 6 and in the Conclusions, could be seen as belonging to a hypothetical group of features of natural language that are used to express emotively relevant attitudes and distances. Bally’s point was that affect is not always directly conveyed by lexical devices; it can also be indirectly reflected in syntactic choices, as is the case with a modus expressing the speaker’s attitude towards a dictum (cf. 2.2.1.). Following Bally, it may be argued that the inventory of expressive/emotive resources of a single langue includes different kinds of abstract devices expressing modality. Still, it is impossible to set a limit on the inventory of emotive dimensions of speech because of the pervasiveness of this dimension and its close connections to co- and contextual factors. The pervasive nature of affect is recognized even by authors who confine the role of emotions within narrow limits, such as Stanckiewicz (1964: 242), for instance, who notes that “practically every word can be endowed with emotive connotations if it is placed in an appropriate social situation or verbal context”. In this respect, Hübler’s (1987) proposal is theoretically promising. Beginning with Bally’s (1965 [1925]) distinction between mode pur and mode vécu (cf. 2.2.1.), Hübler draws a distinction between conventional symbolic emotive meanings and indexical emotive meanings, the latter being “an invitation to the receiver for further interpretative processing” (ibid.: 370371). In this way, Hübler introduces the concept of strategic markedness in addition to the two categories of lexical-semantic markedness (e.g. lexemes with specific connotations) and formal morphological markedness (e.g. diminutives). As we will see in Section 4.4.2., the idea of strategic markedness is close to the notion of emotive contrast proposed by Caffi and Janney (1994b). Moving to the speech act level, I have already mentioned Hübler’s suggested (1987: 371) integration of Grice’s maxim of Quality (which corresponds to the sincerity condition in speech act theory; cf. 1.10.) into the speaker’s emotive identification with the utterance. This interesting idea should be further developed and refined, bearing in mind the need for corroborating conceptual introspective findings against an evidence base. One way to pursue this suggestion is to explore the ways similar ideas have been formulated in non-linguistic fields, particularly in the fields of experimental and clinical psychology, where correlations between linguistic choices and attitudes and emotive stances have long been productively investigated. In the next few sections, I will present some results of these investigations. A further point pertaining to the speech act level worth noting here is the special status of the sincerity condition in speech act theoretical approaches, in particular Austin (1962) and

136

Mitigation

Searle (1975). The sincerity condition is the only condition whose fulfillment can be referred to by the speaker in a non-mitigated way. In fact, for the speaker, the only possible modulation of a reference to the sincerity condition is to express it more forcefully, emphatically, or assertively. Against this background, we may now raise the issue of the role of affect in an integrated pragmatic theory of mitigation. In connection with the broader issue of interactional meaning construction, I assume that mitigation can be seen as a result of both co-textual and contextual inferences within an open system of interacting parameters. The salience of the ‘emotive closeness’ parameter within the system depends on expectations triggered by the style adopted by the interlocutors in the opening moves of a given encounter. From a relational psychological point of view, interaction can thus be imagined as a sort of circuit with a current of emotive voltage (low to high) flowing through it between two poles (attachment vs. detachment), in which mitigation acts as the voltage regulator. The multidimensional analysis of a whole doctor-patient dialogue carried out in the next chapter will clarify how this happens in real interaction.

4.3. A FOLK PSYCHOLOGICAL CATEGORY: INVOLVEMENT In pragmatics, emotive dimensions of speech have often been subsumed under the folk psychological category of involvement (cf. Caffi, 1992; Caffi and Janney, 1994b). Elsewhere (Caffi, 1992), I have raised three main questions with respect to this notion: 1) how has involvement been defined?; 2) what is the opposite of involvement? and 3) which linguistic units have been associated with involvement? In the next few paragraphs, I summarize the results of my inquiry. As to the first question, the term ‘involvement’ has been used in extremely different ways. It has been defined with reference to: a)

speakers’ inner states, as a precondition for interaction (cf. Katriel and Dascal, 1989);

b)

speakers’ emotive identification with speech acts, as a sort of addition or complement to the sincerity condition (cf. Hübler, 1987);

c)

uses of linguistic techniques and strategies, as “conventionalized ways of establishing rapport” (Tannen, 1984: 30);

d)

general rhetorical effects, such as ‘vividness’ evoked by the strategic use of narratives, reported speech, imagery, etc. (cf. Tannen, 1989);

e)

speakers’ cognitive orientations to shared discourse topics (cf. Katriel and Dascal, 1989: 285); and

Emotive aspects

f)

137

meta-messages of rapport, shared feelings, or empathic emotive attitudes enhancing social cohesion (cf. Tannen, 1989: 13).

In this list, it is possible to envisage a shift from an individual psychological orientation to an interpersonal social orientation, via a rhetorical-stylistic orientation. As to the second question, a number of opposites to the notion of involvement can be identified in the literature. These include: a) detachment (cf. Chafe, 1983); b) integration (cf. Chafe, 1983). According to Chafe, oral discourse is marked by ‘involvement and fragmentation’, while written discourse is characterized by ‘detachment and integration’; c) considerateness (cf. Tannen, 1984); d) commitment (cf. Katriel and Dascal, 1989); and e) sincerity in the Gricean sense, as presupposed in any unmarked utterance act in Bally’s mode pur (cf. Hübler, 1987). Finally, as to the third question, among the linguistic units that have been associated with involvement in the literature are the following: a) b) c) d) e)

communication channel (oral vs. written) (cf. Chafe, 1983); conversation (cf. Tannen, 1984; Katriel and Dascal, 1989); narrative style (cf. Tannen, 1989); utterance (cf. Katriel and Dascal, 1989); speech act (cf. Hübler, 1987).

These provisional lists make it clear that current theoretical assumptions about involvement are at best heterogeneous and in some cases probably mutually incompatible. It is also clear that the concept of involvement needs further clarification. In Caffi (1992), I raise the question of how to restrict the notion of involvement, while at the same time including it in the theoretical apparatus of an integrated, all-embracing approach to emotive communication. As we will see in the next few sections, many different kinds of linguistic phenomena are relevant to emotive communication and no single notion can be expected to capture all of these. My idea is that, when communicating, we perceive something that goes beyond the dimension of modality but cannot be equated with the overall conversational style of the exchange. Modality, even in its non-logical, non-propositional definition as expression of the speaker’s attitudes (cf., for instance, Kiefer, 1987), pertains to the sentence level, whereas conversational style pertains to the discourse level. It is related to a whole system of congruently oriented choices within a larger, contextualized communicative project. From a metatheoretical viewpoint, both modality and conversational style are relevant categories for an integrated pragmatic description of emotive communication, but whereas the

138

Mitigation

former is rooted in, and deeply influenced by, logic, the latter is closely connected to sociology. Involvement is a hybrid category between linguistics and psychology. It is employed to capture a wide range of phenomena related to emotive intensity, such as egoidentification and detachment (or ego-nearness and ego-distance) that leave their traces on discourse. Another step toward a better understanding of the entangled notion of involvement is Hübler’s (1987) proposal that it be considered a non-dichotomous category, i.e. a continuum along a scale of attitudes. From this perspective, both attachment and detachment can be seen as ways of expressing involvement. Following Hübler, the two ends of the continuum represent different solutions to the methodological question of how to externalize one’s involvement in terms of linguistic behaviour. The mode of attachment represents the mode of ‘living’ one’s involvement. The mode of detachment is a mode of suppressing it… the attempt not to appear involved is too obvious not to be communicatively relevant. (Hübler, 1987: 373)

These observations constitute an important break with the simplistic equation of involvement with emphasis (cf. Lausberg, 1967), allowing us to regard a detached communicative attitude, at least in theory, as potentially emotively relevant and opening the way toward analyses of various rhetorical ‘forms of subtraction’ and deminutio (e.g. reticence, ellipsis, preterition, understatement, silence, etc.) as ‘cold’ means of emotive expression. Nevertheless, conceptually useful as it may be, Hübler’s proposal is not backed by empirical work. Caffi and Janney (1994b) attempt to provide this intuition and related notions with an evidence base by drawing on different disciplines. The main results of this work are summarized in the next section.

4.4. AN APPROACH TO EMOTIVE COMMUNICATION (CAFFI AND JANNEY, 1994b) Caffi and Janney’s (1994b) “Toward a pragmatics of emotive communication” is an attempt to integrate linguistic and psychological approaches to emotive communication. Let me briefly recapitulate some findings of that paper which will be applied to the analysis of doctor-patient interaction later (cf. Chapter 5). 4.4.1. Emotive communication and emotional communication Caffi and Janney (1994b: 328) follow Marty (1908) in distinguishing between emotive and emotional communication. Marty (1908) originally claimed that it is important to distinguish

Emotive aspects

139

between intentional and unintentional forms of affective expression in speech and writing. Whereas the intentional strategic signaling of affective information is characteristic of persuasive, coercive uses of language, the unintentional spontaneous leakage or bursting out of affect, he said, is characteristic of expressive, cathartic uses of language. In view of the clear functional differences between these two uses of language, he suggested that we call the former emotive communication and the latter emotional communication. This distinction was reflected in Bühler’s (1934) notions of the Appell and Ausdruck functions of language, which later were further subdivided and expanded in Jakobson’s model of language functions. 9 Such a distinction is fundamental, in that it highlights the strategic, intentional nature of emotive communication. This is linked to the distinction in social psychology between strategies of ‘self-presentation’ and ‘impression management’ (cf. Tedeschi, 1981) and ‘real’ inner affective states. Both authors who adopt a narrow perspective on the issue (cf. Stankiewicz, 1964) and authors who adopt broader views (cf. Arndt and Janney, 1991) agree that emotive communication is subject to conscious control and socio-cultural learning. This last point allows me to advance the notion of the emotive capacity, which is central to metapragmatic competence. Each speaker in a given linguistic community has certain basic, conventional, learned, affective-relational communicative skills that help her/him interact smoothly, negotiate potential interpersonal conflicts, and reach different ends in speech. The emotive capacity has been investigated from both general and social psychological viewpoints. As already said in 4.1.1., it is of importance in the present approach that recent research, especially in social psychology, indicates a need to integrate the emotive, interpersonal dimension into an emotional, intrapersonal dimension. Indeed, the emotive capacity is not only related to interpersonal communicative skills. It is also related to, and influenced by, emotional congruence and self-effectiveness, i.e. the ability to recognize one’s own emotional experience in a climate of inner consistency. The emotive capacity is linked to one’s identity in many ways, and includes self-awareness (cf., among others, Leary, 2003). How emotional experience is related to one’s self is a field of investigation covered by psychology; how emotional experience can become, at some extent, shared experience through language is a field of investigation open to pragmatics. 4.4.2. The notion of emotive contrast In order to account for the indexical and contextual nature of emotive communication, it is necessary here to evoke the well-known (if variously interpreted) linguistic notion of markedness. In particular, Hübler’s idea of strategic markedness is relevant to my purposes. Markedness is basically seen by Hübler as divergence from expectations. Thus envisioned, this 9

Marty neglected Darstellung, the representational function (cf. Graffi, 1991: 17).

140

Mitigation

category overlaps partly with the traditional linguistic category of markedness and partly with the conversational category of preference. The type of markedness I have in mind is both syntagmatic (sequential) within a given co-text and paradigmatic with respect to a given communicative situation (cf. Caffi, 1992: 274 ff.). Further, it operates in conjunction with different sets of background expectations against which specific choices can be evaluated. Studies of interaction have shown that markedness works mainly by means of comparisons and contrasts. Unexpected behaviors are particularly significant in interaction, both cognitively and emotively, as they are often experienced by the participants as intentionally divergent activities requiring interpretation. We can therefore ask: against which assumptive or anticipatory frameworks can given communicative behaviors be judged? Can they also be evaluated in the light of unexpected degrees of intensity? As already mentioned in 1.5., Sapir’s (1927: 893) idea of nuclear patterns of behavior is reformulated in Caffi and Janney (1994b: 351) in terms of anticipatory schemata. This category is further divided into: a)

b)

c)

linguistic anticipatory schemata consisting of assumptions about ‘unmarked’ uses of language in given contexts, at different levels (from lexical choices to syntactic construction, from pronunciation to intonation); contextual anticipatory schemata consisting mainly of expectations about kinds of communicative behavior that different types of speakers are likely to produce in different discourse situations. These expectations involve both general assumptions about values, feelings, desires, motivations, interpersonal attitudes, and social affiliations in one’s culture (as well as assumptions about how these are typically communicated in different situations), and situational assumptions about how specific interlocutors are likely to act in the immediate situation. For instance, if we assume that new employees are not usually intimate with their bosses, a new employee who is very informal or personal is likely to attract attention. Similarly, if we assume that married couples do not talk like strangers, a married partner who is unexpectedly formal or exceedingly polite attracts attention, etc.; co-textual anticipatory schemata consisting mainly of expectations about types of communicative behavior that are likely to occur in particular stretches of discourse preceded by previously negotiated behaviors. For instance, in a context characterized by informal speech, unexpectedly formal speech seems out of place. Similarly, in a context of neutral non-evaluative language, a strongly evaluative lexical choice, like an axionym, generates a contrast, etc. 10

10 The idea of emotive contrast is similar to the idea of sudden expressive changes, which are valuable cues in psychotherapeutic interviews. These changes are dealt with by Fromm Reichman (1950).

Emotive aspects

141

4.4.3. Types of emotive devices As already mentioned, Caffi and Janney (1994b) attempt to bridge the gap between psychological and pragmatic research on emotive communication. Working from a psycholinguistic perspective, Osgood et al. (1957) distinguish between the following three main emotive dimensions: evaluation, potency, and activity. Different categories of emotive devices found in the pragmatic literature can be grouped according to these three dimensions, as shown in table 4.1. Table 4.1 A comparison of psychological and linguistic emotive categories (Caffi and Janney, 1994b: 344) Psychological categories

Evaluation

Potency

Activity

Main contrasts

positive/ negative

powerful/ unpowerful

aroused/ unaroused

Linguistic

Evaluation

Proximity

Specificity

positive/ negative

near/far

clear/vague

Evidentiality

Volitionality

confident/ doubtful

assertive/ unassertive

Quantity

categories

Main contrasts

more/less intense

The following six classes of emotive devices have been identified: 1)

Evaluation devices [main distinction: positive/negative] This class includes all types of verbal choices that suggest an inferrable positive or negative evaluative stance on the part of the speaker with respect to a topic (or part of it), a partner, or partners in discourse. Such choices can be interpreted as indices of pleasure/displeasure, agreement/disagreement, like/dislike. They include choices of terms of emotion, diminutives (cf. Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi, 1994; Volek, 1987),

142

Mitigation

emotional lexicon (cf. Lutz, 1982; Jefferson, 1984), evaluative adjectives, predicative adjectives, adverbs of manner, anaphoric references (or encapsulators) with evaluative terms (cf. Conte, 1996). 2)

i.

ii. iii. iv.

Proximity devices [main distinction: near/far] This class includes all verbal choices affecting the ‘distance’ between the speaker and the content of her/his utterance, and the speaker and her/his interlocutor. These devices can be further subdivided into: spatial proximity markers, which regulate metaphorical distances between inner and outer events, i.e. with respect to either external, objective space or internal space as experienced by the speaker. A typical example of such markers is the empathic use of demonstratives (cf. Conte, 1999); temporal proximity markers, which regulate metaphorical distances between ‘present’ and ‘non-present’ events, with respect to real and inner time; social proximity markers, which regulate metaphorical social or interpersonal distances (for instance, vocatives and address terms); selective order proximity markers, which regulate distances between concepts in discourse. These are often referred to in the pragmatic literature in connection with such phenomena as ‘topicalization’, ‘left/right dislocation’, ‘foregrounding’, ‘thematic progression’, etc., and include the position of a given referent within the utterance.

3)

Specificity devices [main distinction: clear/vague] This category includes all linguistic devices used to vary the precision, accuracy, or pointedness of reference to topics, parts of topics, the speaker’s self, or partners in discourse. Specificity can be regarded here as the extent to which a conceptualized object of communication is referred to either directly ‘by name’ or only implicitly hinted at. Specificity phenomena include particular versus generic referents (e.g. definite vs. indefinite articles), entire referents versus parts of referents (e.g. “the dinner was great” vs. “the salad was great”), specific interlocutors versus generalized interlocutors (e.g. “can you help me?” vs. “can anyone help me?”), and so forth.

4)

Evidentiality devices [main distinction: confident/doubtful] This category includes all linguistic devices that regulate the truth value, reliability, correctness, or validity of what is expressed. Evidentiality is typically realized by modal verbs and modal or parenthetical adverbs, but it also includes hedges (cf. Lakoff, 1972), commitment to the proposition (cf. Lyons, 1977), Chafe’s (1986) evidentiality, and Tannen’s (1989) identification with the topic.

5)

Volitionality devices [main distinction: self-assertive/unassertive] This class includes all linguistic choices and discourse strategies used by speakers to vary

Emotive aspects

143

levels of self-assertiveness vis-à-vis partners, and all choices used to cast selves or partners in active versus passive discourse roles. Self-assertiveness is indexed in discourse by choices of self vs. other pronoun agents (e.g. “I want to leave” vs. “do you want to leave?”), active vs. passive voice (e.g. “I decided” vs. “it was decided”), verb mood (e.g. “I want the book” vs. “can I have the book?” or “give me the book”), etc. 6)

Quantity devices [main distinction: more/less intense] This category includes all intensifying and de-intensifying choices of quantity, which in turn include various phenomena (cf. Stankiewicz, 1964), like drawls (e.g. “it’s huge”, “it’s hu:ge”, “it’s hu::ge”), prosodic emphasis (cf. Mathesius, 1939), repetitions, intensifier subjuncts (e.g. “I’m fairly/very/absolutely happy with my work”; cf. Quirk et al., 1985: 445 ff.; 589 ff.), and intensifying adjectives (e.g. “it was a real/complete/total catastrophe”; cf. Quirk et al., 1985: 429 ff.).

4.4.4. Emotive closeness and distance: empathic deixis The above-mentioned categories can be further analyzed with the aim of identifying possible relations between them, particularly hierarchical relations. An analysis of this kind reveals that a hierarchical order does indeed exist and that proximity devices rank first among the others, which suggests that the near/far dimension of emotive communication controls all other dimensions. This seems to confirm Frijda’s (1982: 112) observation that in interaction, we tend to perceive others as “opening up” or “closing down”. Establishing a comfortable operating distance is the first emotive activity, both logically and chronologically, in interaction. Before evaluating something, committing ourselves to it, being more or less assertive with respect to it, emphasizing it, or playing it down, we have to take a stance and establish a metaphorical distance with respect to it. In addition, proximity devices enable us to shift Bühler’s deictic origin of utterances. As explained in 1.3.2. and in Caffi and Janney (1994b: 364-365), it is possible to consider Bühler’s (1934) ‘phantasmatic’ deixis within an emotive framework. In Bühler’s Deixis am Phantasma, the speaker tacitly guides the hearer’s imagination (Phantasiesteuerung) to an imaginary space through an act of conceptual transposition (Versetzung) (cf. Conte, 1999). I believe that phantasmatic deixis can also be used for realizing perspective shifts into or away from the speaker’s inner world, i.e. into or out of the self and its inner affective states (feelings, fantasies, attitudes, desires) and other potential subjective psychological objects of communication. An example of this shift is the empathic use of demonstratives. For instance, if a speaker uses an utterance like “those people who say X” to refer to people in the same room, there is a potential discrepancy between the outer and the inner deictic fields (that can be thought of in

144

Mitigation

terms of Bühler’s ‘fields of indication’ Zeigfelder). In other words, what is near in the outer, physical world (the people who are in the same physical space as the speaker) seems to be far away from the inner, emotive world (“those people” is a choice of non-proximity). In order to interpret such an utterance correctly, the hearer must infer that: 1) 2) 3)

a metaphorical shift from the speaker’s and the hearer’s shared ‘outer world’ to the speaker’s private ‘inner world’ has occurred; the zero point of deictic co-ordinates, the origin of the speaker’s act of reference, is now in the speaker’s inner world; and some type of complementary symmetrical shift on the hearer’s part is necessary if s/he wishes to attune with the speaker and understand her/his utterance correctly.

Similar inferences are at work in Rogers’ psychotherapy, where he assigns great importance to the therapist’s ability to achieve this transposition, or Versetzung in Bühler’s terms, into the client’s personal inner world (cf. Caffi, 2001). To sum up, the inner world is not just a kaleidoscope of subjective states that one can refer to in self-disclosures, or a ‘pool’ of topics one can use as thematic resources. Rather, it can have a more abstract linguistic role, functioning as the deictic frame used by the speaker to make her/his acts of reference. It can hence be argued that proximity devices are fundamental means of emotive communication. They allow speakers to shift the deictic origins of utterances from points in the shared outer world to points in their own personal inner worlds and make it possible to express subtle variations of distance with respect to their topics and partners in discourse. The important point here is that the linguistic devices used for outer and inner deixis are the same (Conte, 1999), regardless of whether they be personal, spatio- or temporal-deictic. 11 This fact suggests that there is a certain degree of isomorphism between the outer Zeigfeld and the inner Zeigfeld. In other words, as pointed out in 1.3.2., it suggests that we can hypothesize a sort of parallelism in the structuring of the intersubjectively shared external worlds of social processes on the one hand and the internal worlds of individual emotional processes on the other. While the sharing of the outer world is taken for granted in the prototypical uses of deixis, in the empathic deixis the sharing of the inner world has to be constructed through complex inferential and attunement activities. In order to further explain the importance of emotive distances, ‘opening up’ and ‘closing down’ processes, and ‘being there’ or ‘not being there’ in communication, I will introduce the category of immediacy.

11

‘Inner’ deixis is referred to variously in the literature as ‘empathetic deixis’ (cf. Lyons, 1977: 677), ‘emotional deixis’ (R. Lakoff, 1974), or ‘impure deixis’ (Lyons, 1981: 232).

Emotive aspects

145

4.5. IMMEDIACY (WIENER AND MEHRABIAN, 1968) Studies conducted in the 1960s by the American social psychologists Morton Wiener and Albert Mehrabian are particularly relevant to the view of mitigation adopted in this volume. Following Wiener and Mehrabian (1968), I begin by assuming that there is a correlation between linguistic choices and affective states. Wiener and Mehrabian provide a starting point for formulating hypotheses about the functions of mitigation in the attunement of emotive distances, and about correlations between patterns of mitigation and negative affect. In experiments conducted with small groups of untrained raters, Wiener and Mehrabian observed variations in linguistic choices that they associated with different degrees of separation between speakers, different attenuations of assertiveness, changes in intensity, and different types of negative affect. They called the conceptual category chosen to account for these variations immediacy. The changes observed during interaction were not interpreted as simple stylistic or sociolinguistic responses to contextual factors. Rather, they were regarded as cues (ibid.: 30) of the test subjects’ subjective inner states that could be used to make inferences about: i. ii. iii.

speakers’ specific experiences of events; speakers’ relations to their partners during interaction; and speakers’ relations to their own utterances.

Wiener and Mehrabian’s theoretical framework is based on the key concept of the ‘boundary condition’, which is similar to the notion of the specific communicative context affecting a speaker’s choices. The informativeness of so-called ‘immediacy markers’, like that of semiotic markers (cf. 1.6.), depends on the options available. Hence, the analysis of immediacy markers makes sense only if alternative choices are possible in the situation as well – that is, only if the choice of a given linguistic device on the part of a speaker can be regarded contrastively as a variant of the other possible choices that the speaker could make in the context under examination (cf. Wiener and Mehrabian, 1968: 5). It is therefore necessary to distinguish between choices motivated by cultural, social, and linguistic-grammatical factors, and choices motivated by psychological factors, personal experiences, inner stances, and so forth. Following Wiener and Mehrabian, the only choices relevant to immediacy are choices motivated by inner stances. The idea of boundary conditions is useful in drawing such a distinction, as it indicates “a rubric which limits, constrains and specifies to some extent the particular forms and interpretations of communication” (ibid.: 17). Only incongruous or inconsistent variations can be a starting point for making inferences about speakers’ emotive stances. The possible incongruity depends on the norms specified in the different boundary conditions. In other words, when a speaker’s choice cannot be said to comply with the norms, one can presume that the choice is motivated or influenced by a psychological state. This idea

146

Mitigation

is closely connected to the phonological idea of markedness on the one hand, and to the conversational idea of preference on the other. It can also be related to the idea of emotive contrasts: i.e., to contrasts rooted in sets of complex expectations and conjectures used by speakers during interaction to make and recognize emotively marked choices (cf. 4.2.). The convergence between Wiener and Mehrabian’s perspective and a stylistic one is quite clear. Wiener and Mehrabian introduce the following seven categories of non-immediacy indicators: Spatio-temporal indicators This category includes the demonstratives this and that, which express spatial proximity, and the use of verb tenses, which can be employed to signal the temporal distances from the utterance. This category is similar to that of ‘proximity devices’ as identified by Caffi and Janney (1994b). 1)

Denotative specificity indicators This category is based on the degree of precision with which the speaker identifies the referent of the utterance. The lack of a direct, unambiguous reference to a given object indicates a lack of denotative specificity (Wiener and Mehrabian, 1968: 38). For instance, the parents of a young man may refer to his fiancée as “our future daughter-in-law”, “our son’s girlfriend”, “his fiancée”, “Jane”, “she”, “that girl”, etc. Depending on the communicative context (or ‘boundary condition’, in Wiener and Mehrabian’s terms) and the expectations it triggers, these choices can be located on scales of decreasing denotative specificity corresponding to decreasing levels of immediacy, i.e., the less specific, the less immediate (ibid.: 36). Another example of specificity devices is the use of negatives (e.g. “I don’t mind going” vs. “I’m glad I’m going”). On the whole, the category of denotative specificity indicators can be said to be similar to Caffi and Janney’s (1994b) class of ‘specificity devices’. 2)

Selective emphasis indicators This category can be exemplified by the order in which different objects are introduced in discourse. According to Wiener and Mehrabian, the order selected by the speaker is greatly influenced by emotive distances. They claim that objects that have been experienced and evaluated positively, and to which greater importance or emotive relevance is attached, are likely to appear first in conversation (ibid.: 33). The selective emphasis category can be compared with Caffi and Janney’s (1994b) ‘proximity’ category. 3)

Agent-action-object indicators There are different ways to express relations between the agent performing an action and the action itself, and between agents or actions and their objects. For instance, in describing two people talking, we can say “they are talking”, “he is talking to her”, etc. Similarly, the 4)

Emotive aspects

147

ratification of a new contract by steel workers can be described by headlines like “Agreement found on new labour contract”, or “Government reaches agreement with Unions (on new labour contract)”, or “Unions reach agreement with Government (on new labour contract)”. Moreover, we can choose the passive voice to shift the emphasis from the agent to the object, as in “she is being talked to by him”, or we can use impersonal sentences to attribute responsibility for the action to an external agent or factor. Similarly, utterances like “it is time to go”, as opposed to “I want/would like to go” or to “I’m going”, can be seen as expressions of non-immediacy, since in impersonal constructions responsibility for, or participation in, the action by the agent is reduced. Agent-action-object devices are similar to Caffi and Janney’s (1994b) ‘volitionality devices’. 5) Modification indicators These are in turn divided into: a) qualification devices, e.g. “I think”, “I believe”, and other verbs expressing a given evidential stance with respect to propositional content; and b) objectification devices, e.g. “it is simply true that”, “it is obvious that”, “everybody says that”, etc. Wiener and Mehrabian (1968: 44) assign a low degree of immediacy to messages raising what they call “the issue of consensus”. This view is grounded on the assumption that, in immediate communication, the consensus between interlocutors is taken for granted. If a speaker raises this issue, the authors argue, it means that s/he feels that it may be lacking. In objectified communication the speaker introduces the issue of consensus by making reference to her/his own experience. As the authors point out, in qualified communication, the speaker implies uncertainty about his communication. In the instance of qualification, there is a separation of, or a discreteness introduced between, the speaker and others including the addressee. In the instances of objectification, there is a separation of the speaker from the objects of his communication. (ibid.: 44-45)

This is because in objectification the speakers feels the need to state that the “reported experience of the event is consensual” (ibid.: 44), instead of simply taking it for granted. The qualification category is similar to Caffi and Janney’s (1994b) ‘evidentiality’ category. Objective orientation indicators vs. egocentric orientation indicators Let us consider the following pairs: “I haven’t found a place” vs. “it was too crowded” and “I lost a friend” vs. “a friend of mine passed away”. Wiener and Mehrabian (1968: 45-46) consider the first utterance in each pair above as ‘egocentric’, and the second as ‘objective’. An objective orientation, they say, indicates a lower degree of involvement on the part of the speaker, and can be interpreted as an attempt to avoid expressing commitment to the content of communication. For this reason, objectifying options are regarded in their theory as less immediate than egocentric options. 6)

148

Mitigation

Automatic phrasing indicators These include discourse markers like “you know”, “I mean”, etc. Wiener and Mehrabian (ibid.: 47) call these ‘non-immediacy cues’. In fact, the prerequisite for communication characterized by immediacy is a cooperative attitude that does not need to be continually confirmed or tested. Due to their confirmational character, markers like those above thus tend to be interpreted as indicators of separateness from the partner in communication. Other examples include false starts, pauses, and hesitation phenomena. The great interest of Wiener and Mehrabian’s work for linguists is due to the fact that it casts light on aspects of communicative competence that traditionally have been neglected. Their experimental data show that untrained subjects can easily infer speakers’ emotions on the basis of linguistic choices. Ultimately, Wiener and Mehrabian were the first psychologists to point out recurring patterns of affective interpretation related to specific types of linguistic structures. Their early research on systematic connections between linguistic forms and inferences of relational non-immediacy was subsequently further developed by others. Kuiken (1981), for instance, reports on four experiments in which the concept of immediacy was used to account for instances of mismatch between personal judgments and expressed judgments. An interesting result of Kuiken’s study is that communication involving negative affect appears to be grammatically more complex than communication involving positive affect. In a similar vein, Collier et al. (1982) show that a non-immediate linguistic style often occurs in connection with mismatches between expressed affect and experienced affect. Such mismatches are characterized, for example, by the use of negatives (e.g. the preference for litotes instead of direct statements in utterances like “I’m not nervous” as opposed to “I’m calm”) and, more generally, by a reluctance to use straightforward, unqualified statements. 12 The relevance of these studies for the present approach is that they take both the psychological affective dimension and the linguistic dimension into account. The investigation of these two dimensions surely benefits from approaching them from a systematic, mutually integrated 7)

12

During a seminar, which was part of a course of applied and general linguistics, a group of students and I conducted a study on how the immediacy model could be applied to Italian. Moving from a complex work of translation and adaptation of the linguistic cues identified by Wiener and Mehrabian for the English language, we made a first preliminary survey to test the hypotheses presented by the two psychologists and to collect information for spoken Italian language. A questionnaire was administered to 108 students at the University of Genoa, of whom 71 were females and 37 were males, with an average age of 24. The questionnaire presented some situations pertaining to an imaginary scene. The students were asked to list construed utterances on a scale of decreasing immediacy. The results of the experiment, although provisional, have shown a clear preference for some solutions. Indeed, the interviewees were able to judge consistently different degrees of involvement and immediacy, thus confirming the ability of untrained raters to recognize immediacy-related phenomena, and substantiating the hypothesis of an implicit procedural competence with respect to emotive aspects of communication.

Emotive aspects

149

point of view. The point of this discussion is that experimental and social psychology may benefit from taking a closer look at linguistic facts that are too often dismissed as lexical minutiae. In pragmatics, studies of affective cues and of different levels of grammatical encoding of emotive competence in different languages may eventually provide a deeper (and more interethnically-grounded) understanding of the affective workings of language. On the whole, this is a research area that linguists can no longer afford to dismiss.

4.6. EQUIVOCATION (BEAVIN BAVELAS, 1985; BEAVIN BAVELAS ET AL., 1990) In an article that appeared in La nouvelle communication, Paul Watzlawick classifies processes of pathological meta-communication into three groups with different communicative structures: tangentialization and disqualification, mystification, and paradox (Bateson et al., 1981: 243 ff.). Watzlawick (1981) describes the case of tangential response by quoting an example from Ruesch (1957). Moreover, he refers to the work by a group of researchers from Buenos Aires on a particular kind of deviant response called ‘transactional disqualification’. The work cited by Watzlawick is that by Sluzki et al. referred to in Section 4.8. The insightful categories dealt with in this and in the next few sections are all rooted in what can be broadly labeled Palo Alto’s model of communication, in particular in the key-concept of double-bind. 13 Working in the tradition of Watzlawick, Bateson, and Ruesch, the psychologist (and coauthor of Pragmatics of human communication) Janet Beavin Bavelas (1985; cf. also Beavin Bavelas et al., 1990), co-founder with Bateson, Jackson, and Weakland of the double-bind theory, focuses on the notion of equivocation in connection with double-binds in everyday communication. The term ‘equivocation’, she explains, is traditionally defined in studies of political language as communication “having two or more significations equally appropriate, capable of double interpretations: ambiguous (…) of uncertain nature, undecided” (cf. The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 1993: 628). In other words, “equivocation is nonstraightforward communication” (Beavin Bavelas et al., 1990: 28). Equivocation can be also defined as incongruence and strategic ambiguity. Beavin Bavelas’ proposed model of equivocation is essentially based on Haley’s disqualification theory, which will be discussed in the next section. According to this model, every message has the following four dimensions: speaker, addressee, content, and context. Beavin Bavelas’ and her colleagues’ work is directed toward discovering ways of measuring degrees of equivocation on these four above-mentioned dimensions. The authors’ major goal is to propose methodological tools for quantifying the judgments in terms of equivocation that 13

In Bateson et al.’s (1956) definition, the double-bind pattern can paradigmatically be of two forms, and precisely: “a) ‘Do not do so and so, or I will punish you’, or b) ‘If you do not so and so, I will punish you’” (Bateson et al., 1956: 253).

150

Mitigation

trained raters assign to a message. The authors “transform these judgments into numbers that range from -2 to +2, representing low to high equivocation” (ibid.: 29). Among the reasons of the relevance of this work in the present connection is that Beavin Bavelas et al. (1990: 22-28) explicitly mention the links between their psychological notion of equivocation and the pragmatic notion of indirect speech acts. Citing Austin, Searle, Grice, Brown and Levinson, and other students of speech act theory, they claim that indirect speech acts can be seen as examples of equivocation. They then criticize speech act theorists (or “rule theorists”, as they call them) for focusing on constructed data rather than on real messages and for not being interested in messages as such or in the specific situations in which messages are produced. The only objective of this type of research, they claim, is to propose models of communication based on hypotheses about inferences, plans, intentions, strategies, and other mental processes: Hence, in this view, the ‘real’ nature of communication is hidden from us; the actual messages are only the surface manifestations of mental processes that we will never see. We propose, in contrast, that the data of communication can be the messages themselves and that the explanation of a message can be sought in the immediate, observable interpersonal situation in which it occurs. We need not use communicative behavior solely as a means of studying the mind; nor should it be treated as a superficial manifestation of more interesting mental processes. We can study it as a systematic and fascinating behavior in its own right. (Beavin Bavelas et al., 1990: 27-28)

As said, Beavin Bavelas et al.’s equivocation model is based on Haley’s (1959) disqualification theory, which I will now briefly discuss.

4.7. DISQUALIFICATION 4.7.1. Haley (1959) Jay Haley, a colleague of Gregory Bateson’s at the Veterans’ Administration Hospital in Palo Alto and a founder of systemic family therapy, analyzed dialogues by schizophrenic patients using the double-bind communication model he developed together with Bateson. According to the most general formulation of this model (Bateson et al., 1956), every instance of communication has a content aspect and a report aspect, whereby the latter qualifies the former and can be therefore seen as form of metacommunication. Relevant to my argument here is that stylistic choices 14 are seen in the model as forms of ‘report’ that qualify the 14

The Palo Alto school first confined these to non-verbal metacommunication; only later did they extend their approach to include verbal behavior.

Emotive aspects

151

relationship between partners and function as meta-communicative cues. Style is linked to the relational qualification of messages. According to Haley, one cannot not qualify a message... subtle qualifications are always present…it is difficult for a person to avoid defining, or taking control of, his relationship with another...Whenever a person tries to avoid controlling the definition of a relationship, at a different level he is defining the relationship as one in which he is not in control... However, there is one way in which a person can avoid indicating what is to take place in a relationship, and thereby avoid defining it. He can negate what he says. Even though he will be defining the relationship by whatever he communicates, he can invalidate this definition by using qualifications that deny his communications. (Haley, 1959: 323-325)

In Haley’s approach, invalidation does not have to be interpreted as logical invalidation. Rather, it is a form of qualification that is inconsistent with the message it qualifies. When speakers qualify messages in ways that suggest they are not responsible for their own behavior, they can avoid defining their relationships with their interlocutors (ibid.: 325). This insight makes Haley’s model highly relevant to the investigation of links between disqualification and mitigation. Haley begins with the following assumption: every form of communication must include, either explicitly or implicitly, four formal components, i.e.: 1) 2) 3) 4)

“I”, “am saying something”, “to you”, “in this situation”.

In other words, every message involves a speaker, some type of content, an addressee, and a context. According to Haley, each of these four components can be negated. ‘Disqualified’ messages are messages in which at least one of the above-mentioned components is concealed or made unclear. The (in)directness of a message can be measured by answering the following questions about the four components of communication: 1. To what extent does the message reflect the speaker’s (or writer’s) personal opinion? (speaker dimension). 2. To what extent is the message clear? (what literally has been said?) (content dimension). 3. To what extent is the message addressed to the other person? (addressee dimension). 4. To what extent does the message reflect the context in which it is produced? (context dimension). Haley exemplifies the denial of the four components as follows. To deny the “I” component

152

Mitigation

(“I am communicating”), speakers can indicate that they are speaking on behalf of others (e.g. an authority) or that they are affected by uncontrollable external factors (e.g. insanity, drugs, etc.). In this way, they become mere instruments transmitting their messages. To negate the “am saying something” content component, speakers can resort to contradiction and ambiguity. In particular, they can indicate that they are not actually using language to communicate but merely speaking nonsense or listing “letters of words” (ibid.: 326). To negate the “to you” addressee component, speakers may simply indicate that they are talking to someone else. Rather than speaking directly to their interlocutors, for instance, they may show that they are talking “to the person’s status position” (ibid.), professional role, etc. Finally, to negate the “in this situation” contextual component of communication, speakers may indicate that their utterances refer to some other time or place than the specific time and place in which their utterances are actually being produced. This last point distinguishes Haley’s model from Beavin Bavelas’ (1985) and Beavin Bavelas et al.’s (1990) application of the model itself. Beavin Bavelas and her colleagues reinterpret Haley's component “in this situation” as “in this sequence, in this context”. This makes it possible for them to evaluate the (ir)relevance of messages in discourse sequences and assess their (in)adequacy or (in)appropriateness as responses to previous turns in the sequence, and marks a significant shift from Haley’s broad notion of the external situational context to a more sharply focused notion of the sequential co-text of interaction. This perspective shift is a methodological consequence which follows from the different types of data on which the analyses of Haley and Beavin Bavelas are based (cf. Caffi, 1999a: 903), the former centering on dialogues with patients affected by schizophrenia, while the latter focusing on everyday interaction. 4.7.2. Mitigation and disqualification This cursory glance at disqualification theories shows the central role of minimizing responsibility in interpersonal interaction. In Haley’s model, deresponsibilization coincides with a type of avoidance in which the speaker avoids defining her/his relationship with the interlocutor(s). This type of avoidance is tragically typical of inconsistent schizophrenic communication, which, as Haley’s and others’ work shows, systematically over-employs deresponsibilization mechanisms also found in ‘normal’ everyday interaction. Why are we following, if only cursorily, this apparently distant path of research? The reason is that, as already explained, avoiding or minimizing responsibility crucially pertains to mitigation. Moreover, inferences and effects linked to mitigated utterances are not automatic. In fact, in communication, both relational and instrumental aspects of identity-building (see the distinction made in 1.7.) are subject to pervasively ambivalent process of negotiation between

Emotive aspects

153

the partners. However, it is possible to trace some ways in which this ambivalence is produced, and to suggest some steps by which mitigation contributes to defining – or not defining – interpersonal relationships and co-identities in communication. Prototypical cases of mitigation such as hedges, bushes and shields are similar to Haley’s different types of disqualification (cf. Caffi, 1999a). Deictic shields, in particular, which shift the deictic origin of the utterance, correspond to the denial of the components “I”, “to you”, and “in this situation” in Haley’s model. The underlying mechanisms of both processes, despite their differences, have interactional advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage is that they enable speakers to avoid assuming direct responsibility for their utterances; the main disadvantage, according to Haley, is that, by using them, the speaker avoids defining the relationship, making this definition uncertain: thereby the speaker’s communication is to some extent invalidated. In a word, s/he is doing and undoing at the same time, being there, in the actual communication, and leaving the field. This is also precisely the relational dilemma of shields, which, on the one hand, allow the speaker to mask under someone else’s voice, while increasing emotive distance and hindering empathy on the other. Further research is needed, however, to explain the connection between shields and emotive distance in interaction and draw meaningful generalizations about it. At any rate, it is possible here to put forward the following hypothesis: given a specific context and a particular boundary condition, the distancing effect of a shield depends on the margin of uncertainty that the shield itself creates in the relationship. As interlocutors faced with shields, we may wonder who is talking to whom. Whose plan underlies the utterance? Who is the speaker speaking for? And why does s/he feel compelled to conceal her/himself behind someone else? Hedges, on the one hand, exemplify disqualifications of Haley’s “I” component of communication, which is related to the speaker as the utterer and endorser of a given illocution. Bushes, on the other hand, seem mainly to affect the “am saying something” component. Uncertainty about the relationship, however, is not a crucial point in either of these two types of mitigation, as there is no the dislocation to another ‘I-here-now’ that is typical of shields, but only a reduction of the speaker’s endorsement of the utterance’s illocutionary force or a weakening of the speaker’s commitment to the truth of the proposition (cf. Hübler, 1983). It can be claimed that the strongest disqualifying potential in mitigation mechanisms is hence not attached to hedges or bushes, but to shields. Further research of great relevance in this connection is the psychiatric study on dialogic mechanisms that can be seen as related to co-textual relevance and that are covered under the label of transactional disqualification. It is the study of Carlos Sluzki and his colleagues in Argentina, which will be dealt with in the next section.

154

Mitigation

4.8. TRANSACTIONAL DISQUALIFICATION (SLUZKI ET AL., 1967) In 1967, a group of psychiatrists mainly from Buenos Aires – namely Carlos Sluzki, Janet Beavin, Alejandro Tarnopolsky, and Eliseo Veron – developed the notion of transactional disqualification as a sub-type of the general double-bind model. Sluzki et al. (1967: 494) describe this as a new type of disqualification not accounted for by Haley’s notions of ‘selfdisqualification’ and disqualification of the addressee (ibid.: 496). Sluzki et al.’s use of the adjective ‘transactional’ underscores the salience of the sequential perspective behind their approach to disqualification. 15 To illustrate the explicative power of the concept of transactional disqualification, the authors discuss a number of real examples taken from interviews with families of schizophrenic patients. The examples all share one common sequential feature: a paradoxical injunction (often tripartite), followed by a reply from the addressee, who is the ‘victim’ of the injunction. Incidentally, Sluzki et al. claim that the designation ‘victim’ for the addressee of such a message, however, is not entirely appropriate, insofar as addressees in interaction normally can neutralize such double-bind patterns. Instead, they use the less negatively connotated expression “recipient of the bind” (ibid.) for the addressee of the paradoxical injunction. In Sluzki et al.’s approach, the addressee’s reply and the message that triggers it are equally important. There is thus a clear conceptual affinity between the point of view adopted by Sluzki et al. and the pragmatic, conversational point of view underlying the present book. All the more so, as the authors emphasize that their theoretical focus is not simply on the interactional exchange in general, but, more specifically, on interactional strategies and their sequential, co-textual functions. This leads them to concentrate on analyzing instances of conversational interaction that meet the requirements of what we could call ‘adjacency’ structures. A feature that transactionally disqualified messages share with equivocal and disqualified messages is that they, too, can be given double interpretations depending on whether they are interpreted in isolation or in their immediate sequential context. Transactional disqualification is hence by nature paradoxical. Because of this, the recipient is usually confused or uncertain about which of two (or more) possible meanings should be assigned to the message.

15

Although it is certainly true that discourse sequences are important in the production of virtually all paradoxical messages (double-binds arise only when incongruent messages are not metacommunicatively repaired, after they have been produced), work up to this time had not taken the implications of sequentiality in disqualification fully into account. Incidentally, the theoretical and historical relationships between sequentiality and the notion(s) of coherence, cohesion, and the like advanced in the 70’s in discourse analysis (especially in the Textlinguistik developed in Germany) are still in need of a systematic pragmatic investigation.

Emotive aspects

155

4.8.1. Types of transactional disqualification As said, Sluzki et al. (1967) analyze recordings of interviews with families of patients whose diagnosis was schizophrenia. In their analysis, the authors distinguish between the following kinds of transactional disqualification: 1) Evasion – change of subject. The authors give the following as an example of this category: a Son:

b Mother:

Well, then, I’ll have to repeat again what I said. You, shall we say, started [in this interview] – of that I am sure – started to attack her first, that is, with nothing clarified, very hurried. I love both of you, and I always try to make things at home work out better, but I can’t manage it ” (Sluzki et al., 1967: 497)

This is the case when speaker A produces a statement a, in which the topic mentioned is not clearly concluded. At this point speaker B produces an utterance b, which refers to another topic, but does not signal the topic shift. In this case, it is said that message b disqualifies message a. According to Sluzki et al., the disqualifying effect is caused not by the meaning of b in itself, but by the lack of connection between b and a (i.e., the preceding message). In conversational terms, there is a lack of conditional relevance between the two messages. From a Gricean perspective, it can be claimed that in these kinds of sequences, the Relevance maxim has been violated, but this does not necessarily mean that speaker B breaks the Cooperative principle. Indeed, non-compliance with the Cooperative principle would require more direct and reiterated moves. 2) Sleight-of-hand. This kind of disqualification is more openly paradoxical than evasion. In this case, the speaker B uttering b not only fails to reply relevantly to speaker A’s utterance a but also, at the same time, claims or suggests that her/his reply is relevant. This does not necessarily mean that speaker B actually says “I am answering you”, s/he may simply produce indicators of reception of the first message. Within the ‘sleight-of-hand’ category, two sub-types can be identified, namely: 2i) literalization. In this case, utterance a, which is not intended to be interpreted literally, is interpreted literally in utterance b (e.g. son: “you treat me like a child”; mother: “but you are my child”); 2ii) specification. In this case, utterance b is a specific response to utterance a, and is true in itself, but

156

Mitigation

contextually irrelevant (e.g. daughter: “we went swimming together all last summer”; mother: “not the last week, you didn’t”). In both literalization and specification, reactive moves in the opposite direction are potentially disqualifying. In other words, both reactive moves interpreting a literally meant message metaphorically and moves giving generic interpretations to messages meant in a specific sense can be seen as cases of disqualification. The parameters involved in these cases are metaphoricalÆliteral and generalÆ specific respectively. 3) Status disqualification. As an example of this category, which “involve more than the basic change of subject”, the authors give the following: “Mother: a Daughter: b Mother:

I have seen, lately, that’s my impression, I have observed, that she doesn’t mix very well with Daniel. Why not, Mama? Well, a mother knows… ” (Sluzki et al., 1967: 499)

In this case, what is disqualified is not the content of a, i.e. the first move, but rather the person who has uttered it, i.e. speaker A. For instance, B may suggest that message a is not valid by virtue of “B’s superior knowledge, right, etc.” (ibid.: 498). In order for disqualification to take place, a must not openly address the issue of the (alleged) asymmetry of competence or power between A and B. This kind of disqualification has both immediate and future effects, as subsequent statements by A may be disqualified in the same way. 4) Redundant question. In this case, a is a statement and b is a (partial or total) repetition of a in the form of question. Such a reply implies doubt or disagreement without openly stating it (e.g. son: “I get along well with everybody”; father: “well with everybody, Peter?”, implying “I don’t believe that”). 5) Nonverbal disqualification. A typical example of this category is silence: silence on the part of B after A produces a message requiring an answer has a disqualifying function. The importance of other non linguistic channels, in particular proxemics, in the production of disqualification, is recognized though left aside by the authors. Much work on the incongruence between channels had been already carried out by the Palo Alto school starting from the seminal paper by Bateson et al. (1956). To sum up, in the five sub-types of disqualification listed above, two parameters basically come into play: “the continuity between contents of messages and the indication of reception of a message” (Sluzki et al., 1967: 499; original emphasis) – in other words, a macro-semantic,

Emotive aspects

157

topical parameter (lack of congruence), and a pragmatic parameter (explicit or implicit feedback confirming ‘uptake’ on the part of the hearer). Typically, transactional disqualification results from some sort of intertwining of these two parameters. In Sluzki et al.’s words, it is a result of a “discontinuity of content without (accurate) indication of reception” (ibid.: 500; original emphasis). Such parameters are clearly not unlike to those involved when emotive contrasts are perceived against backgrounds of what Caffi and Janney call ‘co-textual anticipatory schemata’ (cf. 4.4.2.). Sluzki et al. also mention a third parameter involving face needs and territorial claims called ‘status disqualification’, which is related to challenges to the speaker’s legitimacy as an interlocutor: i.e., challenges to her/his right/competence to say what s/he is actually saying. In this case, disagreement shifts from the content of the message to the person producing it, thus becoming an implicit ad personam attack that turns out to be extremely difficult to manage. 4.8.2. Reactive moves to transactional disqualification Sluzki et al.’s (1967) approach to dealing with the pathogenesis of disqualification is analogous to Haley’s (1959), and both are rooted in Bateson et al.’s (1956) concept of doublebind. Sluzki et al., however, maintain that disqualification, in addition to characterizing pathologic schizophrenic communication, is also found in ‘ordinary’ interaction. Further, the authors suggest that disqualification is connected to play, fantasy, psychotherapy, and humor. As an isolated communicative event, they say, disqualification is not inherently pathological in nature. Rather, the danger of pathological communication lies in the reiteration – as well as in reinforcements produced by reiterations – of the disqualifying pattern. According to Sluzki et al. (1967: 501), there are four possible responses to transactional disqualification: explicit comment, withdrawal, acceptance, and counter-disqualification. Bateson et al. (1956) claim that explicit comment and withdrawal can prevent double-binds, although the latter is not always possible. After discussing various instances of acceptance and counter-disqualification, Sluzki et al. suggest that there is a positive correlation between communication in families with schizophrenic members and occurrences of tripartite sequential patterns. The latter patterns tend to be sequences in which disqualifying moves are followed by moves that consolidate the paradox and reinforce the idiosyncratic nature of the ongoing communication. Ultimately, according to the authors: [i]n this process, which implies a whole style of relation with the world and in which certain stimuli are systematically denied, certain meanings are systematically repressed, lack of recognition is reinforced and rewarded, and clarification is punished, in this, we concur in believing, might rest the pathogenesis of schizophrenia. (Sluzki et al., 1967: 504)

158

Mitigation

In this quotation, the reiterated use of degree words (e.g. the repetition of the adverb ‘systematically’, the choice of predicates such as ‘reinforce’, etc.) in depicting the “whole style of relation” is striking. Incidentally, we have found the same stress on scalar factors in a very distant field, namely the developmental psychoanalytic research dealing with prototypical expectations (cf. 4.1.1.). Nothing could be further from the idea of style as embellishment, ornament, outward trill, emotive coloring, etc. than this bare picture of one possible source of schizophrenia. And nothing could be nearer to the psychostylistic approach pursued in this book.

4.9. THE FREUDIAN CONCEPT OF ‘UNDOING’ (UNGESCHEHENMACHEN) In this section, I would like to raise a topic that deserves further discussion, namely the possible connections between disqualification and the Freudian concept of ‘undoing’ (Ungeschehenmachen). No attempt will be made to give even a summary account of the use of this notion in Freud’s work. All that need be said here is that the concept of undoing may be related to paradoxical behavior, and thus at least to some extent to mitigation. The Freudian concept of undoing is defined by Fachinelli (1992: 35 ff.) as the retroactive cancellation of an event. This type of cancellation is described by Freud in Rat man notes (Freud, 1955 [1909]) and Inhibitions, symptoms and anxiety (Freud, 1961 [1926]) as a ‘defensive mechanism’. Such a mechanism consists of a number of biphasic actions in which the first phase is deleted by the second. According to Fachinelli, who studied temporal aspects of psychoanalytical concepts, undoing is too often understood merely as a neurotic defensive strategy for canceling the past. In fact, according to Fachinelli, undoing is a theoretically powerful notion which covers a wide range of different experiences: “Ungeschehenmachen is a way of dealing with and processing time; it is a temporal technique, and this is, I believe, the only element that various instances of such a mechanism have in common” (Fachinelli, 1992: 37; my translation, C.C.; original emphasis). I will not pursue this question any further here, but I would like to suggest that there is a twofold analogy between undoing and disqualifying on the one hand, and between disqualifying and certain prototypical objects of pragmatic analysis on the other. As to the first analogy, it can be said that while transactional disqualification, like Ungeschehenmachen, is a type of retroactive cancellation, Haley’s disqualification (or ‘equivocation’, as Beavin Bavelas et al., 1990 call it) is marked by a simultaneous selfcancellation that may result in a sort of ‘dispraxia’ (cf. Azzoni, 1998). I am referring here to the potentially self-defeating element that can be found in messages in which some components are inconsistent with, or contradictory in relation to, other parts of the message – that is, messages in which there is a co-existence of doing and undoing, or of ‘being there’ and ‘not being there’.

Emotive aspects

159

As to the second analogy, the Freudian notion of ‘undoing’ can be also applied to indirect speech acts. Beavin Bavelas et al. (1990) explicitly suggest this in describing indirect speech acts as examples of equivocation. On the basis of this, we may hypothesize that indirect speech acts are linguistic correlates of certain kinds of ‘undoing’, and we may well conclude that pragmatic communication, in being inherently retractable, cancelable or defeasible, is marked, however slightly, by forms of potential ‘undoing’.

4.10. CONCLUSIONS In the present chapter I have dealt with emotive communication from a pragmatic perspective. In particular, I have discussed concepts related to mitigation mechanisms from different research fields. Some of these concepts (involvement, immediacy, emotive devices) are static while others (attunement, emotive contrasts, strategic markedness, discontinuity as a constitutive feature of disqualification) are dynamic and can be measured against systems of expectations. A pragmatic, psychostylistic perspective makes it possible to highlight the ambivalent nature of communication and the constant tension in speakers’ choices between showing and concealing, saying and not saying, attenuating and reinforcing, doing and undoing, being there and not being there. A weak way of ‘undoing’ in discourse is to make some aspects of the message unclear. Incongruent discourse is discourse that is marked to some extent by ‘disqualification’ or ‘equivocation’ or that is in some way ambiguous or non-immediate. It could be compared to Penelope’s web were it not for the fact that the undoing occurs at the same time as doing: something is both done and undone in the same speech act. Precisely this simultaneity of doing and undoing raises once again the issue of the different layers of communication involved in disqualification. It is easy to see that this issue is analogous to the pragmatic issue of the links between different types and scopes of mitigation addressed in Chapter 2. As suggested in my previous work and in the present book, in ordinary communication, mitigation, whether epistemic or deontic, is based on avoidance or minimization of responsibility. This non-assumption-of-responsibility feature, what can be called the ‘deresponsibilization feature’, accounts for the pervasiveness of mitigation in particularly sensitive institutional contexts like doctor-patient interaction. In this chapter we have seen that the same deresponsibilization principle operates in schizophrenic communication where it takes the form of specific disqualifying patterns. Haley’s (1959) category of disqualification is precisely based on the idea of the speaker’s avoidance of responsibility, obtained by denying a component of a message. What is peculiar to schizophrenic communication itself is that the deresponsibilization principle is applied recurrently. The interlocutor becomes trapped in

160

Mitigation

ambiguous and equivocal discourse moves whose intended meaning is undecidable: to use Sluzki et al.’s (1967: 497) phrase, s/he “is left hanging in mid-air”. Haley’s (1959) work in this area is especially relevant for pragmatics, and helps to shed light on the mechanisms and effects of mitigation in institutional contexts. Another insightful contribution to the approach presented in this book is the work by Sluzki et al. (1967), who introduce the sequential dimension for the first time into the study of schizophrenic communication. Sequentiality is crucial to Sluzki et al.’s definition of schizophrenic communication and figures importantly in their analyses of conversational sequences that deny the other’s existence either as a partner in the immediate interaction or even more drastically deny the other as a person. The explicative power of the deresponsibilization principle is thus substantiated and confirmed by psychiatric studies rooted in the theoretical tradition of the Palo Alto school. This group of researchers operates on the assumption that schizophrenic communication and ordinary communication share certain identifiable, common patterns of self- and other-invalidation that lead to the speakers’ deresponsibilization for their own utterances/actions on the one hand, and to the denial of partners via the denial of their roles as ratified interlocutors on the other. The final theoretical point to be made concerns inferential chains (cf. 2.1.3.1.). The longer these chains are, the higher the degree of motivation and involvement by the person interpreting the message. This kind of interpretation is referred to by Arndt and Janney (1987: 137) as ‘explicative’, as opposed to descriptive and predictive interpretations. It is important in the present connection to stress that inferential chains move through different, intertwined cognitive, emotive, and emotional layers of communication. The higher the motivational drive, the greater the probability that interpretations will affect, and be affected by, deep emotional layers. This last point is clearly of the outmost importance in doctor-patient interaction, where the patient’s motivation is often particularly high because what is at stake, totally or partially, is her/his life. In describing a doctor-patient interaction from a pragmatic point of view in the next chapter, I will focus on different aspects of ‘emotive closeness’ in its interplay with other parameters, in particular ‘epistemic certainty’ and ‘knowledge-power’ (competence and institutional role). Assuming that the near/far dichotomy is superordinate with respect to other dimensions of emotive communication, I will try to make the concept of proximity operational (cf. Chapter 5).

5 DOCTOR-PATIENT DIALOGUE: A CASE STUDY Ah – questo medico vale un Perù Ah – this doctor is worth a fortune Così fan tutte, Act I, Sc. XVI.

5.0. INTRODUCTION The subject of this chapter is a case-study which will enable us to field-test the tools set up so far and to test their effectiveness. Mitigating devices which are useful in managing the interaction and its potential conflicts will be analyzed in a specific encounter. The aim of the circumscribed analysis of an entire dialogue presented here is to show how different (mis-)uses of mitigation work within the complexity of pragmatic and stylistic processes. It will be immediately apparent that it is impossible to isolate mitigation from the overall dynamics of the dialogue. On the contrary, mitigation invests the dialogue in various ways ranging from topical moves, i.e. content shifts equivalent to forms of disqualification (as is the case for topical shields, cf. 3.4.), to slight propositional or stylistic adjustments, obtained for instance with the use of diminutive suffixes (as is the case for bushes, cf. 3.3.1.). The various layers of meaning production built into the dialogue will be reconstructed in a way plausibly similar to that employed by the interlocutors. The main issue addressed is the description of the monitoring of the various mitigation devices used by the speakers to tailor their cognitive subscription and emotive involvement with respect to what they say and to their interactional partner. The interlocutors go through a continuous process of propositional and relational commitment/non-commitment and of cognitive and emotive approaching/distancing. It thus turns out that mitigation is an extraordinarily important resource through which both protagonists, the professional and the lay participant can, on the one hand, at the instrumental level, more easily reach their aim, and on the other hand, at the interpersonal level, constantly

162

Mitigation

and mutually regulate social and emotive distances. If interlocutors have an emotive capacity (Caffi and Janney, 1994b; 4.4.), i.e., the ability to capture emotionally-laden signals and to attune themselves with these in a non-defective way, it may well be that initiating or responding moves are organized empathically (Seganti, 1995). In other words, mitigating micro-choices play a crucial role in attunement processes (cf. Chapter 4). As we will see, such an ability is basically not displayed in the linguistic micro-choices of the two interlocutors of the dialogue under examination. It is precisely the above-mentioned micro-choices that will be exemplified in the next paragraphs. Such micro-choices are at times equivalent to ‘defective’ responses also at an emotive level and can be described according to the categories presented in the preceding chapters. As interpreters-abductors at various levels of abstraction, we will try in this analysis to cover the articulation of the different but interacting circuits of meaning production, starting from the most superficial layers – the linguistic micro-choices and their modulations – up to the emotive layer of the inferrable effects of these choices. It is important to state once again that it is the emotive rather than emotional layers that are at issue, by referring back to the distinction made in 4.4.1.: the emotive communication we are trying to fathom here, mainly oriented towards the manipulation of signals whose aim is to present a certain self-image (Arndt and Janney, 1991: 529; Caffi and Janney, 1994b: 328), does not deal with the speakers’ ‘real’ inner emotional states but rather with those layers concerning both self-presentational needs (cf. Suls, 1993) and the strategic assumption of a communicative role or impression management, which social psychologists talk about (among others, Tedeschi, 1981). In short, what type of person – and also what type of doctor and patient – we want to be taken for; which identity, among the more or less vast repertoire of identities which together, more or less consistently and in continual reshaping, delineate our self, we want to activate and to put in the foreground and which one – to use a metaphor propounded by Eco (1975) – we want to ‘narcotize’ and put in the background. And yet, even social psychologists have recently raised the question of the legitimacy both of a separation of intrapsychic theories and theories based on impression management (e.g. Tetlock and Manstead, 1985) and of a rigid distinction between the intrapsychic and the interpersonal (e.g. Leary, 1993: 129 ff.). As exhaustive treatments and satisfactory conceptual frameworks do not yet exist, we can presume for the time being that the emotive layers filter the ‘emotional’ quality of the interaction and influence the ways we perceive and interpret the relation with our interlocutors. Together with other social and cognitive factors, in particular the type of encounter, the type of aim pursued and the type of topic dealt with, these diverse and mutually permeable layers determine the stylistic profile of the encounter. We are entitled to venture albeit carefully, hypothetically and abductively, into these layers, characterized by uncertain boundaries, only as far as we are authorized by the initiating or responding choice – signal or clue – which appears on the surface of discourse. We do not have

Doctor-patient dialogue: a case study

163

direct access to the speaker’s mind and all that we can offer is a description of the recognizable effects, which is compatible with a given context and co-text. The main purpose of this description is to try and reconstruct, although in a rudimentary fashion, an interface among linguistic, sociological and psychological micro-dimensions. In other words, we will start to make explicit what we instinctively know as speakers. Although this type of knowledge is operative in the inferential activities continually carried out in our everyday discursive practices, it is still an almost totally unexplored area.

5.1. ANALYSIS OF A DIALOGUE AT A PRIMARY CARE PHYSICIAN’S The transcription analyzed in this chapter, which will be referred to as TR1 and is given in Appendix A, reproduces a dialogue at a Primary Care Physician’s – presumably a young physician with a marked Northern Italian accent – in a large town in the North of Italy. From an initial comment made by the patient we can reasonably infer that the doctor is a substitute, perhaps a temporary one, of the regular doctor. The patient is a fifty-seven-year-old cobbler; although tempered by a presumably long period spent in the North, the phonological, prosodic and morphosyntactic features of his speech appear to be typical of a central-Italian region. The above information and presumptions can all be derived from the recording: as anticipated in the Introduction, in order to further guarantee the interlocutors’ privacy and to avoid introducing distracting factors into the analysis, such as for instance my personal acquaintance with the doctor, I have used materials obtained through third parties who acted as intermediaries and guarantors. Regarding method, I will move from the general to the specific and this will bring about a closer and closer examination of the text. This will allow me to situate mitigation phenomena and to observe their role. First, a macro-structural analysis will be proposed. I will borrow from narratology the distinction between two types of summaries: the fabula and the plot. According to the Russian formalists, the fabula is the set of narrative motifs as rearranged in their logical, causal and chronological order. The plot is the set of motifs as they appear in the story, i.e. the actual content. Tomashevsky (1928) draws a related distinction between ‘bound motifs’, which cannot be omitted and ‘free motifs,’ which “can be omitted without damaging the integrity of the causal-temporal connections of events”. Bound motifs are relevant to the fabula. As far as the plot is concerned, free motifs are often the most important, as in the case of digressions. 1 With this distinction in mind, I will propose a thematic-topical analysis at a macro-level in order to bring out the bound themes which together make up the fabula. Then I will describe the most significant moments of the encounter by considering not only the global ‘syntax’ of 1

For a discussion on these issues, cf. Segre (1979: 1-55); Eco (1979).

164

Mitigation

communicative actions, but also the local adjustments of the emotional atmosphere. By means of a table which will make it easier to grasp the simultaneous analysis of the different dimensions involved, I will cover the communication dynamics in the various phases of the encounter. This will be done at a micro-level that can be likened to the plot. In addition, I will identify micro-sequences of attunement or non-attunement which can be detected from the occurrence of various types of superficial phenomena, in particular mitigation devices. Lastly, within the different phases, using the categories discussed in the previous chapters, I will focus on various effects of rhetorical-stylistic meaning and of psychological meaning. On a whole, mitigation will be the main path I will pursue. I would like this analysis to be as bland and simple as possible from a theoretical viewpoint. In other words, I want the explicative categories to arise from the discourse itself and from the way in which the interlocutors construct it, without external, unnecessary superimpositions or recourse to a particular theory elaborated elsewhere. However, this goal will be only partially achieved, as there is no doubt that the notions used, such as “adjacency pair” or “illocutionary act” trigger theoretical frameworks and interpretative programs. Still, I intend to make a statement of limited theoretical commitment: I will employ these and other categories belonging to a specific framework only as far as they are useful and will avoid forcing them beyond their explicative capacity. The analysis which will be carried out is not proposed as anti-theoretical, but as pre-theoretical: a comprehensive, integrated pragmatic theory does not exist. An essential condition for constructing one is the examination of discourse free from predetermined categories. The limitations of this analysis, in particular the unsatisfactory rendering of the prosodic devices and of the voice quality, whose emotive impact is so easy to catch in real interaction and so difficult to describe technically, must be stressed yet again. It is useful at this point to read a perspicuous passage taken from Labov and Fanshel (1977): The lack of clarity or discreteness in the intonation signals is not an unfortunate limitation of this channel, but an essential and important aspect of it. Speakers need a form of communication which is deniable. It is advantageous for them to express hostility, challenge the competence of others or express friendliness and affection in a way that can be denied if they are explicitly held to account for it. (Labov and Fanshel, 1977: 46)

As I have claimed more than once, the avoidance or weakening of responsibility is basic to mitigation. This non-assumption-of-responsibility feature is the common denominator of different types of mitigating devices. One of the purposes of this study is to focus on a repertoire of linguistic means which offer advantageous retractability and deniability options analogous to those of the intonation signals noted by Labov and Fanshel in the passage quoted above. To compensate at least in part for the

Doctor-patient dialogue: a case study

165

unsatisfactory rendering of intonation signals, I have added in the transcription, next to the indications relating to the three basic types of prosodic contour in Italian (Canepari, 1985) – i.e. rising, falling and suspensive – some comments meant to give an idea of the ‘expressive’ tone, such as “scolding tone” or “disheartened tone”. It is important not to conceal the objective weakness of this unsatisfactory rendering and first of all to recognize it as such. However, we must also remember that the hypertrophic role assigned here to the verbal choices compared to the non-verbal ones at least partially makes up for the opposite way, followed at first by studies on communication carried out in the 1960s (studies by Argyle, Scheflen, Birdwhistell, Ekman and Friesen to mention only a few) and, more recently, by studies on emotions, which assign a predominant role to the non-verbal, prosodic and kinesic components. In a bestselling book, Oliver Sacks recounts the reactions, on the one hand amused and on the other hand bewildered, but both negative, to a presidential speech, of two types of patients in his neurological ward. The first group was made up of people affected by receptive aphasia. This type of aphasia rendered them incapable of grasping the referential meaning of the words. At the same time, this pathology made them extremely sensitive to the emotive tone and to the expressiveness of the speech. The second group was made up of only one patient, affected by a serious form of tonal agnosia, which meant she could not grasp the emotive tone of the speech. Instead, her ability to decode the meaning of words and phrasal structures was intact and indeed enhanced. 2 A comprehensive multimodal account is not yet available. 3 Until now research on communication has oscillated between these two opposite poles, over-emphasizing at times the verbal and at times the non-verbal aspects of communication. I am aware that the analysis which will be carried out in this chapter is far from avoiding a similar imbalance, since it will mainly consider verbal, linguistic phenomena. However, it will try to consider both types of abilities (i.e. the understanding of words and the understanding of the emotive tone carried by words), which, together, make up the physiological communicative competence in its striking complexity.

5.2. THE BROADER SUMMARY OF THE ENCOUNTER: THE FABULA I will now summarize “what happens” in the encounter, synthetically presenting its global articulation, the fabula. This should help to better understand the more detailed analyses of the phases which will follow, and the role played by mitigation within them.

2

The story can be found in the chapter entitled The President’s Speech, in Oliver Sacks, The man who mistook his wife for a hat. New York: Harper and Row, 1985, pp. 80-84. 3 Promising insights in that direction can be found, however, in Goodwin (2005).

166

Mitigation

Both the extra-linguistic action (his being there) and the communicative actions of the patient (hereafter P.) have one main purpose: his request for a cure for a specific problem, namely a pain in the leg which will not go away despite various types of therapy. The urgency of the request can also be grasped from the fact that P. makes it at his first turn (l. 3), going straight to the point. The main purpose of the communicative actions of the doctor (hereafter D.) is to see what the situation is like and to defer the definitive diagnosis to a specialist, an orthopedist. Various ‘sub-goals’ that are mutually recognized and dealt with and that correspond to various derived communicative actions are embedded in the dominant communicative macroactions. The initiating linguistic acts (Wunderlich, 1976) or the main topical acts (Bublitz, 1988) along whose lines the dialogue is articulated are made by P. P.’s most important communicative act, subordinated to the main one and programmed before the encounter, is this: considering the lack of success of the treatments already tried out, he proposes to follow the advice of a non-expert who is geographically and perhaps affectively close to him. He would like to try a certain type of injections, advised by a “fellow-villager” who has tried them successfully (ll. 51-52). The general gist of the encounter is constructed around the incompatible lines of therapy the interlocutors speak up for. On the one hand P., tired of his pain and let down by the ratified experts, asks permission to try the injections advised by a non-expert. Implicit in this move is the complaint about an official knowledge which nonetheless he does not completely give up on. If the doctor agreed, a paradoxical situation would arise: the expert, in a self-defeating move, would ratify the defeat of himself and of the experts as a category, admitting the greater efficacy of remedies suggested by the patients who are, what’s more, “fellow-villagers”. P., although inconsistently, threatens the constitutive asymmetry of the encounter in one of its crucial variables: the therapeutic efficacy, that is, knowing how to cure. The complaint, more ‘grumbled’ than openly expressed, which comes to light in P.’s discourse against the ratified experts derives not only from the fact that they have not known how to cure him, but also from the fact that they have prescribed him many examinations of whose usefulness he does not seem to be completely convinced. This was especially due to the fact that, as P. seems to imply, the same doctors have not taken them adequately into consideration. For these reasons P., in order to obtain the necessary attention, is resigned to pay for a visit: “even if I have to pay I’ll go [...] to one [...] who will look at all the X-rays I’ve got” (ll. 255-261). On the other hand, D. avoids an open conflict with his interactional partner but, to neutralize the complaint and the implicit accusation, thus re-establishing the asymmetry of power and knowledge, defends himself by attacking. In fact, reversing the roles of accuser and accused that P. seems to imply, D. stresses both P.’s responsibility in procuring his illness and his inadequacy in coping with it.

Doctor-patient dialogue: a case study

167

5.2.1. The phases of the encounter The criterion I will follow is a hybrid between a thematic criterion and a clinical criterion. This hybrid criterion allows us to highlight at the same time the major topical moves corresponding to the bound motives in Tomashevsky’s (1928) narratological model and the phases (corresponding to the goals of that type of institutional activity) along which the visit unfolds. As a result, it is possible to disassemble the dialogue in the following phases: Phase 1, opening (ll. 1-3): 1a) greeting; 1b) comment on the interlocutor and on the setting (“we’re new: around here”). Phase 2, case history (ll. 3-61): 2a) P.’s definition of his problem (clinical tests, etiologic hypothesis, unsuccessful treatments); 2b) D.’s redefinition of P.’s problem (l. 31): professional formulation; 2c) P.’s request to follow the advice of the non-expert, trying a new treatment; 2d) D.’s refusal to grant the request. Phase 3, diagnosis (ll. 61-155): (therapeutic non-linguistic actions = phase of the real consultancy); 3a) D.’s definition of P.’s problem (ll. 86-87/101/111-112/58/146-147) 3b) P.’s redefinition of P.’s problem (“a bit of that”). Phase 4, lateral sequence (ll. 155-217): (problem of hypertension): 4a) D.’s ascertainment of P.’s new problem; 4b) P.’s minimizing of this problem. Phase 5, treatment (ll. 219-380): 5a) P.’s request for a solution to his main problem; 5b) D.’s proposal of a solution to the problem; 5c) P.’s refusal of D.’s proposal; 5d) new proposal by D.; 5e) P.’s acceptance of D.’s new proposal. Phase 6: closing (ll. 383-385): 6a) take-leaving formulas; 6b) take-leaving formulas.

168

Mitigation

In pragmatics, to say that an encounter is co-constructed is to state the obvious. In conversational analysis, to say that a doctor-patient interaction is asymmetric seems equally obvious. And yet, neither of these statements is satisfactory. With regard to the former, in the study of the co-construction of conversation, stylistic aspects, which are also the object of negotiation, and which herein are regarded as a starting-point for emotive calibration, have not been sufficiently taken into consideration. As for the latter, asymmetry is not given beforehand, but is constructed and negotiated and is one of the results which derive from assigning values, which vary during the interaction, to the various interactional parameters. It is therefore necessary to be equipped with tools which permit a dynamic and at the same time integrated description of the different processes at work. In the case being examined, the co-construction occurs in a peculiar way and in some respects it is (even) symmetric: in fact, the coconstruction has a mirror-like quality also at the emotive communication level (cf. 5.8.1. on non-attunement sequences). As we can see even at a first glance, the phase in which the process of negotiation at an argumentative macro-level (proposal/rejection; new proposal/acceptance) is articulated the most is phase 5, the phase where the treatment is decided on. Each phase has a recurring trend: after a sequence of more or less open conflict, a reconciliation and an agreement are reached. Indeed, each phase closes with a series of moves which locally renegotiate different aspects dealt with in the previous turns, aspects which both the interactional goals of the interlocutors and (attempts at) reshaping of the relation correspond to. Let’s see how. 5.2.2. The recurrent trend of the phases Moves of phase 1: opening. 4 P. does not reply to D.’s greeting with the preferred adjacent move which consists in acknowledging the greeting, but with a comment on the interlocutor (who is temporarily or permanently substituting a colleague) and on the interactional setting: “we’re new around here”. The comment in itself, the informal register and the first person (plural) inclusive of ‘affiliation’ already indicate, in that context, P.’s non-alignment to a communicative style of deference towards the role of the expert. We do not know if this behavior is intentional, in which case the comment would be interpreted as an attempt to shape the relationship on an equal basis, or if it is unintentional, caused by inadequate metapragmatic awareness. Perhaps the doctor interprets the first person plural as disrespectful, perhaps even derogatory, and therefore close to the pragmatic function of the use of the first person plural found in Persian or Turkish noted by Hagège (cf. Chapter 3, note 7). It is, however, a reply which, even if interpretable as harmless in a non-institutional symmetric context, in the context 4

For a discussion of the issue of the openings in doctor-patient consultations cf. Coupland et al. (1994).

Doctor-patient dialogue: a case study

169

in question can be interpreted as threatening the interlocutor’s professional identity (Drew and Heritage, 1992; Hall, Sarangi and Slembrouck, 1999). The markedness of this choice can be seen in three respects simultaneously: sequencing, content and style. This choice is indeed marked from a sequential viewpoint in that it replaces the preferred adjacent move which is by default the “acknowledgement of the greeting”. It is also marked from the point of view of content because P. takes the liberty of making a comment on his interactional partner. And finally it is marked from a stylistic point of view because not only does P. avoid any sign of deference, but he also displays a vaguely paternalistic tone, albeit softened by the use of “we”. The doctor, who for the moment has not been assigned an asymmetric status, might feel authorized to interpret this marked choice as a disqualification, in particular as a disqualification regarding the “you” (second person singular) component of the message, according to Haley’s model (cf. 4.7.1.): this choice would amount to a “non-you”. Here an emotive contrast is triggered by a choice which can be ascribed to the class of proximity within Caffi and Janney’s (1994b) categories (cf. 4.4.). Concluding moves of phase 2: case history and definition of the problem. This phase ends with the negotiations concerning the proposal of self-managed treatment (advised by a non-ratified expert), a proposal which P. introduces cautiously (“I don’t know if:”) after having prepared it by recounting the lack of success of the other treatments he has tried out. The expert, firmly and at the same time indirectly rejects the proposal. He does not explicitly prohibit taking the medicine nor does he state the dangers of taking it. This latter move would have been the preferred move inasmuch as inferentially closer to a prohibition or at least to deontic modality. Instead, D.’s rejection is conveyed through an ironic, almost sarcastic, utterance. An interior monologue which ruffles the surface of the discourse with polyphony can be detected here (see the cancelled premise, the focus particle addirittura - ‘even’, etc.). In other words, D. operates a strong rhetorical-stylistic modulation, indexing an (irritated) affective mode. The markedness is again sequential, illocutionary and stylistic, and depicts an emotive contrast. Concluding moves of phase 3: diagnosis. This phase ends with the negotiations on the technical and non-technical definition of the problem (ll. 133-142). This has a tail-end where the prohibition of the use of the medicines suggested by the fellow-villager is renegotiated. Both closures of this phase, the provisional one at line 140 and the definitive one at line 155, are interesting from a stylistic viewpoint. The first closure is made up of a quadripartite sequence which can well be described in terms of accommodation theory: the more powerful speaker, after correcting (“IN THE VERTEBRA!”) P.’s formulation (“the cartilage was worn out in the kneecap”) accepts, in fourth slot, the non-technical definition of the less competent speaker (“it’s that”). The greater symmetry resulting from such an acceptance is also obtained

170

Mitigation

through the implicit definitions of the relationship: Not only does P. not adopt a deferential style, but his non-alignment also reaches peaks of aggressiveness. The second and definitive closure of this phase (l. 155) is a reconciliation sequence: the doctor mitigates the prohibition by resorting to a type of external mitigation. This consists in additional explanations which appeal to the interlocutor’s rational capacity (cf. Blum-Kulka, 1992), almost as if to confirm the greater relational equality which has just been reached. Concluding moves of phase 4: measuring blood pressure (lines 155-217). This phase gives the doctor the chance to restore the asymmetry in its most retrograde variant. In this phase, having detected P.’s hypertension, almost as if he had caught P. red-handed, D. interprets, so to speak, the role of the ‘bad’ doctor, scolding the patient and treating him like an irresponsible child. P., being attacked, gets confused, stammers the distorted name of the medicine and gives evasive answers which the ‘bad’ doctor completes for him more and more impatiently. D., while cooperating at a conversational level (he provides turn-completion moves in third position), attacks at an interpersonal level. The definitions of the relationship in this phase are all in terms of complementarity in Watzlawick et al.’s (1967) sense. D. changes course at line 208, shortening the emotive distance. Indeed, D. in fact resorts to a shield, an enunciative mitigating device (EMD), in the first person plural, with an enallage of the person, so as to formulate the proposal of trying out a different medicine in alternative to the one which caused side-effects (“we can try other t t tablets, mmm?”). This phase ends with the agreement on how to solve the problem which has arisen. Referring to the medicine which P. already has at home, D. concedes “well do start taking it then” and so the prescription takes on the milder deontic tone of authorization. Concluding moves of phase 5: treatment (lines 219-380). This phase ends on the negotiation on the mitigated definition of P.’s problem (“just a touch”), on the negotiation of the probable therapeutic approaches (“if it was necessary to do I don’t know paradoxically to operate”) and on the renegotiation of and definitive confirmation of the prohibition to take the medicine recommended by the non-expert. As was to be expected, on close scrutiny, the general view is much more troubled and uneven than that of a more distant and comprehensive glance. It already seems clear that the heterogeneous communicative parameters modulated by the two parties with different effects are intertwined. Regarding asymmetry – if, for the present purposes, we take this as a useful though generic descriptive category – at the sequential level focused on in this paragraph, this relational variable is not particularly evident; this will emerge more clearly where the focus of the analysis will be on the illocutionary aspects of the exchange (cf. 5.6.).

Doctor-patient dialogue: a case study

171

5.3. BETWEEN FABULA AND PLOT: SALIENT MOMENTS OF THE ENCOUNTER At an intermediate level between the fabula level and the plot level, between what cannot be omitted and what captures the actual shape of the interactants’ communicative behavior, in this section we can zoom in on the salient moments of the encounter. D. implies P.’s inadequacy in terms of both behavior and understanding of medical knowledge, as evidenced in particular by his lack of comprehension of the results of the tests and of their evaluation by the experts, introduced as other voices. For example, D. says: ll. 101-102

D. xxx [person’s name] probably explained this to you

and he repeats the concept, reinforcing the assertive illocutionary force of his utterance (at line 101 it is just a hypothesis, as is indicated by the modal epistemic future) through reference to the accuracy of the source, rendered more authoritative by the impersonal phrasing and the recourse to the written code: l. 107

D. in your file it’s written perfectly clearly:,

During the whole encounter D. treats P. as if his illness were his (P.’s) own fault. D.’s tone of voice is often annoyed, at times aggressive, at times patronizing. This blaming attitude surfaces after just a few exchanges, at line 35: ll. 35-36

D. = but how did you manage to do this thing to yourself.=

this is a question characterized by a marked sudden shift of register, if compared to the co-text, that is, with reduced formality and the triggering of an emotive contrast (Caffi and Janney, 1994b; 4.4.2.). The anaphora with the most generic and colloquial noun phrase “this thing” reformulates the technical designation “a muscular tear of that muscle. of the iliopsoas” of line 31 (cf. Stirling, 1981). The intended illocutionary force of the question is that of an accusation. Several devices point towards this: among others, the polemic ma (“but”) at the start of the turn, the choice of very generic and informal vocabulary: fare (“to do”), cosa (“thing”). That this interpretation is correct is shown by P.’s reaction in the adjacent reply, where he feels the need to defend himself, saying with a self-justifying tone: “Well I don't know you see. I’m a co:bbler”. Curiously enough, but far from unusual in this activity type, the patient produces an

172

Mitigation

excuse for his illness. Another example of D.’s blaming attitude is the exchange at lines 119-123: ll. 119-123

D. how old are you? P. I’m fifty-seven.-D. and. you’ve never been to an orthopedist’s?

where the additive connective e (“and”), with a prolonged vowel-sound indicating a sort of hesitation in completing the utterance which indeed implies a negative evaluation for P., can be interpreted, within the implications produced, as an adversative-concessive marker. Within that co- and con-text, D. in fact produces a conversational implicature (Grice, 1975), which can be reconstructed as follows: “you have never been to an orthopedist’s even though you’re fiftyseven years old?”, alluding to an alleged rule of behavior (“at a certain age one should consult an orthopedist”) and the indirect scolding of P. for having ignored it, in the twofold sense of not having known about it and of breaking it. D.’s tone is irritated: the illocutionary forces triggered are colored by more or less strong behabitive nuances, in Austin’s (1962) sense. For instance, the warning at lines 145-148 is modulated in such a way as to become almost a challenge: ll. 145-148

D. you can even do all the therapies you want but the slipped disc - [... ...] remains, eh? -

Consistently with the global type of activity, which is transactional (Brown and Yule, 1983) and inherently cooperative, open conflict is avoided by both parties, although a certain amount of tension is palpable. The two basic questions we are addressing here are precisely: how is the current of this dialogue produced? How can it be smoothened out? One strategy for avoiding conflict consists in displacing it onto other actors. The patient refers to the lack of success of the experts’ – doctors, specialists, physiotherapists and masseurs’ – knowledge and his interest in the parallel knowledge of an unofficial expert who simply offers her own experience. P. is attracted by the idea of following the advice of his “fellow-villager”, an idea which he will try to propose again a few turns later and which he will unwillingly give up on (l. 376), continuing to suggest its application right to the end, despite D.’s repeated attempts to dissuade him. This theme will therefore become the object of further negotiations: after a first reaction of sarcastic refusal (Slugoski and Turnbull, 1988) of the alternative proposal, D. will then mitigate the prohibition, by motivating it with a series of more and more bland reasons, finally admitting that “this can do something, but very little”. The doctor’s first reaction to the proposal of trying the medication is the following (ll. 61-62):

Doctor-patient dialogue: a case study

ll. 61-62

173

D. these they’ve even taken these off the market eh because:: queste addirittura le hanno tolte dal commercio eh perché::

followed by a topic change introduced by a topical rehierarchization marker (“more than anything”): l. 62

D. but more than anything we have to see. ma più che altro bisogna vedere.

The focus particle addirittura (“even”), in the sentence with left-dislocation (queste addirittura le hanno tolte dal commercio), signals the extreme limit of an underlying argumentative path. At lines 154-155, it is as if D. invited P. to follow a similar path of reasoning, by choosing a predicate which indicates a phase of argumentation where the hortative subjunctive is a directive, with an explicit indicator of exercitive illocutionary force, and the predicative mitigation – a bush – takes the form of a cautious litotes: ll. 154-155

D. bear in mind that those medicines there have been taken off the market now precisely because: not very useful.

D. therefore realizes that P. is not convinced that to follow his fellow-villager’s advice would be a bad idea, or maybe a dangerous one. The professional is aware of the possibility that his interlocutor has not correctly interpreted the previously formulated speech act regarding those medicines, perhaps because he has not carried out the necessary inference to shift from the literal illocution ‘assertion of a state of things’ (“they have taken them off the market”) to the intended non-literal illocution ‘prohibition’ (“you musn’t take them”). Despite this, instead of clarifying the intended (exercitive) illocutionary force by pronouncing an explicit prohibition or a clear sanction, D. adopts again the indirect strategy of a hint, choosing once more to affirm a factual state of things (“they have taken them off the market”). On hearing such a statement, a cooperative and inferentially active hearer ought to assign the status of consequence to the implied premise (“those medicines are dangerous”) in order to get the meaning. Even more curiously – in spite of the fact that the previous exchanges have shown quite plainly that P. is pursuing an idea of his own – it is precisely to this phantasmal cooperative interlocutor that D. explicitly appeals (“bear in mind”). D. mentions an additional reason for the removal of those medicines from the market, which mitigates the reason already given. We don’t know if the medicine in question was actually present during the encounter, even if only in the form of its box or the instructions leaflet. If not, then we might presume that “those medicines there” is an example of non-immediate choice (Wiener and Mehrabian, 1968; 4.5.), a case of empathic deixis: the demonstrative “those there”, in which the non-proximity feature is inherent, would

174

Mitigation

indicate not a physical but an emotive distance, the speaker’s negative evaluative attitude (cf. Conte, 1999). It is at this point that a new fact occurs. The measurement of P.’s blood pressure reveals a state of hypertension. l. 156

D. you’ve got high blood pressure haven’t you?

From line 155 to line 217 a clinical action which is important for D.’s decision-making process, i.e. measuring P.’s blood pressure, is carried out. This action is however subordinated to the main one of formulating a diagnosis of the problem which has determined the encounter. From a conversational viewpoint, this is a long digression (Bublitz, 1988: 100 ff.). But in fact this description in terms of topical shift is only one of the possible descriptions of what, overall, considering not only the topical actions but also the therapeutic actions, constitutes a lateral sequence of the visit. It must be remembered that what we are analyzing is not, so to speak, a conversation whose end is internal to the conversation itself, that is, an autotelic conversation. It is rather an instance of “discourse to do”, a type of goal-directed activity aimed at reaching an operational decision which P. must comply with in his future behavior. Although minimizing the seriousness of the situation, P. admits to knowing about the problem, saying: l. 159

P. ah, my blood pressure I’ve always got fairly high blood pressure ((lit. ah the blood pressure I’m always a little always high of pressure.) eh la pressione io sono sempre un po’ sempre alto di pressione

This sub-standard construction with a sort of relation genitive “alto di pressione” is perhaps due to an analogy with Italian widely used idiomatic constructions such as “giù di morale” (lit. ‘down of moral’, meaning ‘discouraged’), “sano di mente” (lit. ‘healthy of mind’), “svelto di mano” (lit. ‘fast of hand’, meaning ‘light-fingered man’), etc. This sentence shows again P.’s uncertainty regarding the position of adverbials and markers. P. admits to having started treatment and then giving it up. D. scolds P. for having neglected the problem and for having suspended the treatment: he repeats the affirmative phrase and adds to it an explicit warning, which is modulated as angry intimidation through emphasis, an aggressive tone and the final reinforcement obtained by use of a question-tag, which is a signal that agreement is being sought: ll. 187-189

D. now however your blood pressure is 180 over 105 Your blood pressure must be lower, musn’t it?

Doctor-patient dialogue: a case study

175

For his part, P. doesn’t seem to be particularly intimidated: he doesn’t consider the problem of hypertension a dominating one but a collateral one. And sure enough, at line 219, with a significant topic change, P. reintroduces the subject of his sore leg, a problem he is much more interested in, thus effectively concluding the “hypertension” topic. In this case he again shows careful control of the ‘syntax’ of actions, even if not of the sentences. l. 219

P. well I never. just to have this leg looked at a bit=

D. accepts the reintroduction of the initial problem and defers its solution to another expert: l. 222

D. = but you need to see an orthopedist for this leg

P. refuses the proposal of visiting a specialist through the national health scheme because of the long waiting-lists. The doctor then tells him of a specialist, and provides some practical information such as address, telephone number and visiting times. The final phase of the encounter revolves around whether or not it is a good idea to consult the specialist. P. says he is prepared to pay for the visit in the hope that someone will at last fully consider his case: ll. 274-280

P. ah! so I’ll go there for an examination I have to pay for never mind it makes me= [... ...] -- so I’ll take him all the th all the things that I’ve done

For his part, D. explains the advantages of the fee-paying visit, including the fact that, in the event of having to undergo surgery, the specialist in question has a hospital structure to back him up. The encounter closes with the negotiations on the definitive conclusion of the problem and its solution. At the end of the visit, the patient has not reached his aim, namely to be diagnosed and to be informed on treatment. What he has obtained is to be deferred to a specialist’s for another, feepaying, visit and, we might add, to be provided with a series of mitigations. In reply to the main clinical question “is it a slipped disc or not?”, D. first states “you have a slipped disc” (ll. 145-146), then reinforces his statement with “this course is absolutely typical” (l. 232), then attenuates it with “yours isn’t a real slipped disc” (ll. 361-362), and in the end concedes “just a touch” (l. 366). To the consequent main therapeutical interrogative “is an operation necessary or not?”, he replies with a litotes: “this can’t can’t +can’t* be excluded ((lit. is not excluded

176

Mitigation

this thing))” (ll. 354-355). The next paragraph will concentrate on the analysis of these and of other mitigations.

5.4. MULTIDIMENSIONAL MICROANALYSIS OF TR1: THE PLOT Zooming in on the dialogue with a view to providing a fine-grained description of it, in this paragraph I provide a turn-by-turn description of TR1, by using a scheme in which various dimensions of analysis are taken into consideration simultaneously. Next to the number corresponding to the lines of the transcription, the first column presents a co-textual and contextual description, or in other words, a sequential and illocutionary description of the head act carried out in each turn. The second column sketches the rhetorical-stylistic description of the turn, and the occurrence of various types of mitigation or strategies that can be related to it. In this second column the following abbreviations are employed: EMD, for “enunciative mitigating device”, i.e. shields; IMD, for “illocutionary mitigating device”, i.e. hedges; PMD, for “propositional mitigating device”, i.e. bushes. The third column focuses on a level of description of what happens at the psychological level, employing the conceptual categories of immediacy and of the various types of disqualification discussed in Chapter 4. The fourth column, by means of the simplified recourse to the base parameter of emotive distance, covers the inferrable results, the interpretations authorized on the basis of the linguistic choices disassembled in the first three columns, that is to say, the speaker’s moving away from or getting close to what s/he says and to or from her/his partner: I indicate this with +/- emotive distance (+/- em dist). The hypothetical character of this last description is also indicated by the use, for this column, of the dashed line. As specified in Chapter 4, referring to a distinction between emotive and emotional originally made by Marty (1908), what is crucial herein is the first term of the paradigmatic opposition: what is relevant is not so much the inner state of the interlocutors, to which we do not have access, but rather the effect of approaching or distancing projected by a surface choice, and its presumptive repercussions on the definition of the relation and on the management of the interaction. Of course, we do not know if the interpretations proposed regarding the emotive distances have been activated or not: for our purposes, namely making some steps forward in the understanding of an up-to-now ‘shadowy’ area of communicative competence, it is sufficient that these interpretations are plausible, i.e. inferrable by a speaker endowed with standard communicative competence, and that they are compatible with a given context and co-text. The purpose is to evaluate whether it is possible to perceive, if not yet conventional effects, then at least probable correlations between the various dimensions of meaning production. On the one hand, what is interesting is that a given choice of form (the various types of mitigation) displays, to some extent, a certain type of markedness, that is, that

Doctor-patient dialogue: a case study

177

it brings about an emotive contrast (cf. 4.4.2.), thus authorizing a given interpretation. On the other hand, what is interesting is the ‘reply’ made by the partner and the occurrence of ‘mirrorlike’ marked choices in it. As we are dealing with effects of meaning which are often subtle and wavering, my reconstruction as interpreter-abductor may be considered arbitrary. However, the diminution of the degree of certainty of the analysis is made up for by the extension of the range of dimensions taken into consideration and by the possibility of establishing correlations among these. If we do not want to study the functioning of communication in segments, ‘one piece at a time’, the alternative left is to be satisfied with various types of more or less mysterious and unanalyzable entities (noumenons, in Kantian terms), from “expressive tonality” to “emotive coloring”, to “empathy”. Lines No.

Co-and contextual description

Rhetorical-stylistic description and mitigation indicators

Psychological description and emotive indicators

+Immediacy

Inferrable emotive distances

1

D.’s greetings; invitation to sit down

3-4

P.’s comment on the setting; P.’s introduction of his problem (topic 1)

EMD (shield), enallage of person (1st p.p.)

6

D.’s question

Falling intonation

+em dist

8-9

P.’s answer. Sub-topic 1 (X rays)

Hesitation (difficulty with formulation)

+em dist

11

D.’s turn completion

Co-operative sequential format

-em dist

15-16

D.’s question

High register, patronizing tone

+em dist

18-19

P.’s answer; P. gives more detail to the subtopic 1; introduction of sub-topic 2 (CAT-scan)

21

D.’s request of confirmation

23-29

P.’s confirmation and clarification of sub-topic 2; attempt to introduce sub-topic 2 (CAT-scan)

Politeness ‘Imperfetto’

31

D.’s summary of P.’s problem

Use of technical lexicon

Transactional disqualification (evasion)

+em dist

33

P.’s reformulation of his problem

Use of non-technical lexicon; deictic terms, sentence adverbs

Counter-disqualification; +Immediacy

-em dist

-em dist

178

Mitigation

Lines No.

Co-and contextual description

Rhetorical-stylistic description and mitigation indicators

Psychological description and emotive indicators

35-36

D.’s question implying he ascribes responsibility to P.

PMD (bush): designation with colloquial anaphoric noun-phrase: style shift (decreased formality)

Heightened evaluation stance

38-39

P.’s justification and his aetiological hypothesis

Justification tone, captatio, PMD (bush): epistemic future

43-46

P.’s story of therapeutic failures

50-53

Quotation of a nonratified expert’s suggestion on a possibile cure: indirect request for D.’s opinion

Cautionary marker (“I don’t know if:” – “non so se:”). Suspensive intonation

61-63

D.’s indirect refusal to endorse the advice (by stating a consequence of a cancelled premise)

65

P.’s answer; statement; repetition of l. 8, l. 33, l. 44

67

D’s. request for more details

69-70

P.’s clarification, repetition

72

D.’s request for further information

74-75

P.’s answer; statement; repetition

77-82

D.’s request

84

P.’s assent

86-88

D.’s attempt at a diagnosis; request

90

P.’s assent

96-97

recommendation: D.’s question

Inferrable emotive distances +em dist

-em dist

+Immediacy

-em dist

Sarcasm; topical re-hierarchization (“more than anything” – “più che altro”), aversio a materia

Elusion

+em dist

Repetition; body-centered deixis, sentence adverb

+Immediacy

-em dist

Repetition

+Immediacy

-em dist

Repetition

+Immediacy

-em dist

Equivocation (saying something)

+em dist

IMD (hedge): indicative mood with a jussive function; falling intonation; PMD (bush) “a moment” – “un momento”; external IMD (hedge): grounder

Negation: external IMD (hedge): grounder of the request

Doctor-patient dialogue: a case study

Lines No.

Co-and contextual description

Rhetorical-stylistic description and mitigation indicators

Psychological description and emotive indicators

-Specificity deictic shield

99

P.’s affirmative answer

101-102

D.’s diagnosis. Hypothesis implying a criticism

PMD (bush): generic designation; IMD (hedge): modal adverb whose scope is on the neustic; EMD (shield): reference to another enunciative source

104

P.’s affirmative answer; addition of more detailed information

Repetition (complaint)

106-108

D.’s conclusion of his argumentation; side move of explanation and ending of the visit on the examination table

EMD (shield): reference to an anonymous and authoritative source, strenghtening modulation

110

P.’s confirmation

112-115

D.’s diagnostic hypothesis; D.’s diagnostic hypothesis; Lateral move with a request for confirmation

179

Inferrable emotive distances

+em dist

+em dist

+Evidentiality and professional assertiveness

+em dist

EMD (shield): reference to a decisive evidence (CATscan); PMD (bush): marked lexical choice (“demonstrate” – “dimostrava”); IMD (hedge: conditional mood (“it could be” – “potrebbe essere”)

117

P.’s confirmation; repetition of the diagnosis

119

D.’s question

121

P.’s answer

123

D.’s question (indirect criticism)

Left-dislocation; counterargumentation

126-129

P.’s justification; storytelling with temporal specification

Counter-argumentation and complaint; repetition

131

D.’s order

Absence of mitigation

+Volitionality

+em dist

133-134

P.’s report on another expert’s opinion

Indirect speech with the present tense in the verb of saying in the present tense; non technical register

+Immediacy

-em dist

136

Other-correction of D. .

Technical designation, irritated tone

Negative attitude

-em dist

Repetition (turn overlapping)

-em dist

+Evaluation

+em dist

+em dist

180

Mitigation

Lines No.

Co-and contextual description

Rhetorical-stylistic description and mitigation indicators

Psychological description and emotive indicators

138

P. repeats the nontechnical designation

P.’s polemically goes on with colloquial register

Definition of the relationship

140

D. accepts P.’s formulation; closing of the accommodation sequence

Adoption of colloquial register

-em dist

P. states his uncertainty

Suffering tone

Recalibration in the definition of the relationship (P. attenuates his ‘victory’ after D.’s ‘giving in to’ his definition)

144-146

D.’s therapeutic indications

IMD (hedge): (“probably” – “probabilmente”); introduction of an alternative possibility; EMD (shield): impersonal construction (“it’s necessary” – “bisogna”)

Disqualification in the alternative possibility (“or wait and see”, “o vedere un po’”)

146-148

D.’s diagnosis; warning about the uselessness of palliatives

Reinforcement of certainty

+Assertiveness; challenge tone

147-149

D. admits the possible effectiveness of the medicine recommended by the non-ratified expert, then withdraws his admission

142

Downgrading of the importance and urgency of the request; deferential; self-ascription of less competence

-em dist

-Volitionality recalibration, elements of negotiation

151-152

P.’s justification

154-155

D.’s recommendation; disqualification of the non-expert’s advice

PMD (bush): litotes (“not very useful” – “non tanto utili”)

Recalibration; negotiation elements

156-157

D.’s verdictive

Reinforcement (tag requesting agreement)

Alarmed tone

159-160

P.’s statement justification

Mitn (of the perlocutionary sequel ‘alarm’)

162

D.’s question

164

P.’s answer: statement

Uncertainty about the name of the medicine (-competence, -power)

Inferrable emotive distances

+em dist

Doctor-patient dialogue: a case study

Lines No.

Co-and contextual description

Rhetorical-stylistic description and mitigation indicators

166

D.’s reformulation (otherinitiated repair)

-Competence, -power

168-169

P. adds further details; lack of uptake of the repair within hints at another visit

175

D.’s conclusion and scolding

177-178

P.’s confirmation and justification

180-181

D.’s warning and scolding

183-185

P. reports doctors’ divergent opinions

Uncertainties about the name of the medicine; lack of deference; PMD (bush): vague designation

Psychological description and emotive indicators +Professional assertiveness

181

Inferrable emotive distances +em dist

Transactional disqualification; -Immediacy (-denotative specificity)

+em dist

+Evaluation (critical attitude)

+em dist

Reinforcement (tag)

Patronizing and irritated attitude

Topic-shift (shifting responsibility to experts)

Transactional disqualification (evasion)

Aggressive tone

Attitude aiming to make P. feel guilty and alarmed

Transactional disqualification (evasion)

187-189

D.’s behabitive and verdictive (he sides with an opinion on the best medicine); restatement of P.’s hypertension

191

P.’s commissive (he promises to follow the therapy)

193

D.’s question, request for details

195

P.’s answer

Reticence

197-198

D. gives an explanation confirming P.’s inadequacy; question about dosage

Polemic tone

+em dist

Negotiation markers (“but” – “ma”, “so” – “così”, “isn’t it?” – “no?”)

-em dist

200 202

204-206

P.’s answer D.’s question (attempt at understanding P.’s reasons) P.’s justification; commissive (promise to restart the therapy )

+em dist

182

Mitigation

Lines No.

Co-and contextual description

Rhetorical-stylistic description and mitigation indicators

Psychological description and emotive indicators

208-209

D. offers alternative drugs; he accepts P.’s justification

EMD (shield): 1st person plural; Echoic repetition

Increase of solidarity markers

-em dist

211

P. refuses alternatives; he explains the reasons of the refusal

Self-disqualification (saying something)

+em dist

217

D. invites P. to start the therapy

219-220

P. closes the digression. P. introduces the initial topic again

P. weakens his commitment to the behavior promised

Evasion

+em dist

222-226

D.’s advice (coconstruction of the agreement on the diagnosis and therapy)

IMD (hedge): indirect speech act; external IMD (hedge): grounder of the advice; objectivization (“it is necessary”, – “bisogna”)

Co-operative attitude

-em dist

Convergent sequence: confirmation (“precisely” – “esatto”)

+Solidarity, +epistemic certainty

-em dist

Convergent sequence (mutual confirmation)

+Solidarity, co-operative climate

-em dist

+Immediacy

-em dist

228 230-232

P.’s confirmation D.’s clarification of the diagnosis; request for confirmation

234-235

P.’s confirmation; P. reports a symptom which confirms the diagnosis

237

D. completes the description of the symptom

239

P. confirms D.’s description

241-243

D.’s completion of P.’s turn; confirmation of the diagnosis; therapeutic instructions

245

250

P.’s acceptance D. suggests a visit through the public health system P.’s objection

253

D.’s counter-objection

255-256

P. requests a fee-paying visit

247-248

Body-centered deixis (“it goes right down to here” – “fin qui”) Oscillations between subjective (“I think” –“io credo”) and objective (“the best thing is” – “la cosa migliore è”) modalizations

Disheartened tone Colloquial register ( cleft sentence)

Inferrable emotive distances

-em dist

Doctor-patient dialogue: a case study

Lines No.

Co-and contextual description

Rhetorical-stylistic description and mitigation indicators IMD (hedge): indirect advice (“you have to decide” – “infatti lei veda”); external mitigation (grounder)

263-264

D. gives the name of an expert

270

P. accepts the advice and its justification

Convergent sequence

272

D. states his willingness (commissive)

Mode vécu: sentence adverb (“really” – “proprio”); universal quantifier (“everything” – “tutto”)

274

P. states again that he is ready to fix a fee-paying visit

277

D.’s question; topic shift

279

P.’s answer; P. re-states that he accepts the advice

282

D.’s indication

284-287

P. starts again to report his clinical ordeals

293-297

D.’s indications (address and hours); hypothesis on a visit in a short while (commissive)

299

P.’s repetition; request for further information

305

D.’s further information.

307

P. repeats D.’s indication

318 320

D. adds further information; reccomendation P.’s commissive

Mode vécu: parenthetical eclamative utterance (“never mind” – “pazienza!”) Truncation of a possible digression

Psychological description and emotive indicators

+Volitionality

183

Inferrable emotive distances

-em dist

+Immediacy

+em dist

IMD (hedge): downgrading of the commissive

Echoic utterances

Patronizing tone

Co-operative climate; relational definition: complementary roles

-em dist

184

Mitigation

Lines No.

Co-and contextual description

Rhetorical-stylistic description and mitigation indicators

Psychological description and emotive indicators

322

D. tries to provide more details

Manifestation of cooperative intentions

Emotive indicator+quantity

324

P. asks D. to add more detailed information

326-327

Interior monologue; reccomendation about the specialist

329-334

P. restarts his story about his disappointing therapeutic experiences

336-337

D. gives the specialist’s phone number

339-340

P.’s question

IMD (hedge): “maybe” – “forse”, “also” – “anche”, “shouldn’t I?” – “no?”

Affiliation request

342-343

D.’s answer; authorization to go on his behalf

EMD (shield), 1st p.s. instead of 3rd p.p. (enallage)

lapsus?

349

P. starts a negative sentence

Argument in favor of a thesis

Inferrable emotive distances -em dist

IMD (hedge): indirect speech act (statement with a request for agreement)

-em dist

Textual mitigation: topical shield of lateralization (“and what’s more” – “oltre a tutto”); 351-355

359-362

D.’s argumentation in favor of a fee-paying visit

D. presents diagnosis and therapy just as merely hypothetical ones; explanations about therapy; warning; new diagnostic formulation

hypothetical sentence with a sentence adverb (“paradoxically” – “paradossalmente”; PMD (bush), litotes (“this can’t be excluded” – “non è esclusa la cosa”) Eventualization; PMD (bush): verdictive litotes, designation of the pathology using a non-technical register (diminutive suffix) (“it’s only a little bit” – “è solo un p pochino”)

-Immediacy

+em dist

-em dist

Doctor-patient dialogue: a case study

Lines No.

Co-and contextual description

Rhetorical-stylistic description and mitigation indicators

364

P.’s minimizing designation

PMD (BUSH): bush

366-369

D. repeats P.’s designation; D. explains the possible evolution of the disease; warning

Convergent sequence IMD (hedge): indirect speech act

371-372 374

376

378

380-381 383 385

P. confirms; he restates his aetiological hypothesis D.’s assent P.’s final acceptance of the advice; he definitively abandons the idea of following the advice of the non-ratified expert D. restates the prohibition adding new grounders for it P.’s echoic-repetition; leave-taking greeting

185

Psychological description and emotive indicators

Inferrable emotive distances

Co-operative climate

-em dist

IMD (hedge): epistemic future Tone of information receipt Inclusive 1st p.p.; resigned tone (“okay”, “va be’”)

-em dist

Inclusive 1st p.p. of solidarity

-em dist

1st p.p.; deferential allocution

Co-operative climate

-em dist

D.’s leave-taking formula P. repeats the leavetaking formula

5.5. THE ARGUMENTATIVE LAYER It can be claimed that at the core of the script ‘medical visit’ lies the retroactive meaning assignment to a story made by the other party. The visit, in such as version, is basically seen as a problem-solving process: starting from the clinical data and from P.’s account, D. formulates a diagnosis, by drawing on his cognitive categories. To put it in other words, D. identifies (reformulates) X, the event or the constellation of symptoms P. is the bearer of, as Y, that is, as an event or marked constellation identified and recognizable by medical knowledge, token of a known and classified type. By means of this interpretative act of selective abduction (Magnani and Ramoni, 1988: 65), P.’s event becomes D.’s event (Lacoste, 1981), moving from one speaker’s territory to the other’s (Kamio, 1994; 1995). Even if we leave aside the emotive aspects, this version of facts has the major drawback of blurring the argumentative status of this type of encounter, linked to the speakers’ interactional goals (Lacoste, 1981: 170; Have, 1995a). And we must note that both speakers, for different reasons – usually, politeness and deference to the role on the patients’ part; caution (self-defense) and tact (to protect the patient) on the doctors’ part – opt for different strategies.

186

Mitigation

In the various phases of the encounter under examination, the all-pervasive negotiation taking place does not regard only meaning assignment – ascribing a token, the specific ailment, to a type, the classified and denominated illness – but also, crucially, the building of consensus. The latter, as we will see, is delayed by the lack of agreement in defining the relationship because P., precisely at an interpersonal level, does not provide the signals expected by D., and D. does not supply the signals expected by P. The building of consensus regards, retroactively, what happened, that is, P.’s medical history, his case history; indexically, in the “here and now” of the visit, it concerns the definition of P.’s problem, i.e. the diagnosis; proactively, it concerns what needs to be done, i.e. the treatment. My point is that this building of consensus regards, beyond the decisionmaking process in cognitive and operational terms, also the two protagonists’ ways of interpreting their roles. This process affects interactional layers that can be described in cognitive, pragmatic and social terms, but also affects the interaction in its emotive layers. The argumentative status of the dialogue, which surfaces particularly clearly in only a few phases, actually pervades the entire encounter. In the case history and diagnosis phase, the two interlocutors struggle to impose their definition of the facts and the relationship, and the atmosphere is antagonistic rather than cooperative. We witness not so much the building of agreement but rather the attenuation of disagreement.

5.6. THE ILLOCUTIONARY LAYER: OVERALL ILLOCUTIONARY DESCRIPTION OF THE PHASES Is a well-recognized fact that the type of illocutions enacted by the interlocutors is strictly related to the construction of their roles and to the negotiation of their asymmetry due both to the implicit meanings and the effects triggered by illocutions per se. We know for instance that an exercitive illocutionary act, in order to be successful, expects the preparatory felicity conditions – Austin’s (1962) A conditions – to be met with regard to some form of power or knowledge of the speaker. On the contrary, behabitive illocutionary acts, which express a feeling, can be carried out by anyone, even by speakers who have no power (Sbisà, 1989). Let us now examine the phases listed in the previous paragraph from the viewpoint of their overall illocutionary profile, asking ourselves: which illocutionary acts dominate in each phase, on both D.’s and P.’s part? In the scheme which follows I mention: the main sequential patterns, that is to say, the adjacency pairs which recur in the various phases, D.’s main illocutionary acts and P.’s main illocutionary acts.

Doctor-patient dialogue: a case study

187

Phase 1, opening: Behabitive (D.: greeting, P.: complaint). Phase 2, case history: Main sequential pattern: question-answer (ll. 6-8, 15-18, 21-23). P.’s main illocutions: constative/representative, i.e. description, summary, narration of events, guesswork; request for authorization. D.’s main illocutions: constative: questions; and exercitive: formulation of the professional upshot (l. 31); prohibition (l. 61). Phase 3, diagnosis: Main sequential pattern: question-answer; accommodation sequence: formulation, other-repair (ll. 133-140). D.’s main illocutions: verdictive (ll. 86-87, 101, 112-114, 144); exercitive (“sit down”). P.’s main illocutions: representative-expositive (story-telling). Phase 4, lateral sequence: Main sequential pattern: constative/minimization. D.’s main illocutions: verdictive/exercitive (evaluation; order). P.’s main illocutions: representative/commissive (promise to take Tenoretic). Phase 5, treatment: Main sequential pattern: proposal/refusal/acceptance; request for confirmation/prohibition. D.’s main illocutions: exercitive/representative (reasons, explanations); presumptions. P.’s main illocutions: exercitive (refusal)/representative (questions). From this scheme we can draw the following conclusions about the predominance of an illocutionary macro-type in the speech acts of the two interlocutors: D. utters illocutions of a mainly exercitive/verdictive type; P. utters illocutions of a mainly representative/behabitive type. This result is goes toward confirming the expected roles, given the centrality of the dimensions of power and of knowledge in the exercitive/verdictive illocutions, and the centrality of the dimension of knowledge, on the one hand, and of the expression of the inner emotional states, on the other, in the representative/behabitive illocutions. In the Searlian model of speech acts, the dimension of knowledge corresponds to a preparatory felicity condition, and the dimension of the expression of inner states corresponds to an essential condition. The illocutionary macro-type prevalent in P.’s discourse, the representative one, is exemplified by speech acts where ‘knowledge’ is such with regard both to the account of the events and to the representation of the state of things, which are “close to the speaker” (Kamio,

188

Mitigation

1994), as they regard P.’s direct experience. We are therefore dealing with a self-centered type of knowledge which does not presuppose further competences or powers and which can be expressed by direct and non-modulated acts. At this level of analysis we can therefore claim that the two interlocutors, in their illocutionary acts, give an interpretation of their mutual roles which shapes and confirms the asymmetric status of the encounter. Having said this, the picture is far from complete. In fact, to begin with, in each of the different phases, as we have seen while examining the outcome of each one, there is a triggering of a further, complex, interactional dynamics which cannot be reduced to illocutionary phenomena, but which is intertwined with these. Secondly, in each phase, a phenomenon which is particularly important for our aims comes to be known: if we keep the description still in terms of illocutionary acts but integrate it with other categories, we can confirm the recurrence of a modulation of both P.’s and D.’s illocutionary acts in a behabitive sense. Two general expressive-stylistic tonalities, comparable to musical keys 5 which run through the whole dialogue prevail here: we might define this general tonality as “of complaint” in P.’s case, and “of criticism” in D.’s case, as I have already shown for some of the turns previously discussed. D.’s tone of criticism surfaces for instance in the previously analyzed exchange of lines 119-123, which follows P.’s stating his age, in particular in D.’s utterance: “and you’ve never been to an orthopedist’s?”; or in the warning of lines 146-148, modulated in a challenging tone: “you can even do all the therapies you want but the slipped disc [...] remains, eh?”; or again, at lines 187-189, when D. repeats that P.’s blood pressure is high, adding the statement of P.’s duty, which the emphasis, the aggressive tone and the reinforcement obtained through the final tag – a marker requesting for agreement – modulate in annoyed intimidation: “now however your blood pressure is 180 over 105. Your blood pressure must be lower mustn’t it?”. 5

The concept of key can be found in Hymes’s (1974) model of communication, condensed in the very famous acronym SPEAKING, with reference to prosodic or non-verbal traits which intertwine with linguistic production. In Hymes (1972: 62) this is defined as the “tone, manner or spirit in which a thing is done”. Hymes compares it to the grammatical category of modality and says that it can become significant in interactional analysis when placed in open contrast to the content of an act or where a new key is used in an unexpected way, when an utterance is, indeed, rekeyed. Ochs and Schieffelin (1989) write about affect keys, referring to signals given by the interlocutor on the affect frame triggered in the case of affect specifiers, or in reference to the intensification of the same in the case of affect intensifiers. According to the authors, affect keys can operate: a) on a referent, b) on a proposition, c) on a sequence of propositions. Moreover, compared to the subject they modify, they can occupy three positions: antecedent, concurrent and subsequent. My use of the term and of the concept of key, taken directly from musical lexis, is wider than that of Ochs and Schieffelin because it refers to an overall expressive tonality which runs through the whole encounter. The concept I employ might roughly correspond to that type of affect key identified by Ochs and Schieffelin which refers to a sequence of proposition. As for the problem posed by Ochs and Schieffelin of the position of the key, this presupposes a separation between affect keys and propositional or otherwise cognitive keys which my current work precisely aims to remove.

Doctor-patient dialogue: a case study

189

5.7. MITIGATION AND INSTITUTIONAL POLITENESS IN TR1 Institutional politeness – should we decide to maintain this somewhat vague label – for lay participants, within their personal style and their minor or major experience of that type of interaction, will be revealed in various degrees of adherence to a deferential style (use of deferential allocutions, phatic speech, behabitive speech acts). Institutional politeness, however, is not only a matter of style. It can be seen as the result of triggering a sector of metapragmatic competence which regards stylistic choices, but above all the foundation itself of the special conversational pact established with the doctor. From the patient’s point of view these basic assumptions are the following: a) the interlocutor is more competent; b) the interlocutor’s conversational moves are relevant. Patients’ (and doctors’) conversational behavior is not understandable if we disregard these two basic assumptions, which allow the Gricean cooperative principle, or a version of it, to work even if the doctor’s agenda is invisible and inaudible (Heath, 1992) in a given encounter. Starting from her/his (extralinguistic) assumption of competence and (linguistic) assumption of relevance of what the other person says and does, the patient’s institutional politeness will precisely be shown in her/his not opposing the doctor’s hidden agenda and in facilitating its unfolding, for instance, by accepting brusque topic shifts or providing brief yet thorough answers to the questions s/he may be asked. If we assume that the co-production of meaning is layered, with layers overlapping with one another with no sharp boundaries, we can still restrict our analysis and deal with those cases of mitigation which concern above all social and institutional dimensions, that is, the construction of face and role. As I have already said, neither separately nor together do these two dimensions entirely cover the complexity of communication in general and in doctor-patient communication in particular. However, they are in the foreground in the manifestations of ‘ritual’ mitigation, i.e. formulaic, phatic mitigation and routine formulas of politeness, which I have distinguished from ‘strategic’ mitigation (cf. Chapter 2), which works for the speaker’s various aims. In TR1, D. does not indulge in forms of ritual mitigation; on the contrary, we can say that he uses it only where absolutely indispensable. Moreover, in this dialogue, D.’s rare ritual mitigation blends into strategic mitigation because the weakening of invasive acts typically brought about by justifications or grounders (Blum-Kulka et al.’s (1989) external mitigation), responds not only (perhaps more) to reasons of politeness but to practical reasons, in particular that of explaining to the patient what the doctor has to do and what the patient has to do. An example of this is found at lines 77-82:

190

Mitigation

ll. 77-82

lie down on the examination table for a moment ((lit. you lie down a moment on the bed+DIM)) [...] because there’s something I want to have a look at

This is a request to lie down that D. makes to P., before the visit itself. As I have shown in the multidimensional analysis of Section 5.4., the request is made by using a type of illocutionary mitigation achieved by operating on the syntactic mood of the utterance: the utterance can be described, if we are willing to use a Searlean category by now obsolete in pragmatics, as an indirect speech act. Form and function are not co-oriented, as the indicative mood has the jussive function of a command: the action which the doctor expects from the other person is stated rather than prescribed, and consistently with this choice, the statement is accompanied by a falling affirmative intonation contour. Two types of mitigation, internal and external, give the act its physiognomy: the internal one is given by the passe-partout mitigator “a moment/a little” (cf. 6.6.1.; 6.6.1.2.); the external one consists in adding an explanation – a grounder – to the request, attenuated by the imperfetto of politeness, a modal use of this past tense widely attested in Italian (cf. Bazzanella, 1990). Also at lines 87-99, D. backs up his nonlinguistic therapeutic actions – the visit itself – with explanations which attenuate their invasiveness and also make it easier for him to carry out the institutional task expected in that phase: ll. 87-99

D. no well you have to keep your trousers on+because* P. +right. yes. yes* D. I need to do something which otherwise:, P. right. D. now keep your leg limp, okay?- does it hurt here at the back if I do +this:?* P. yes--+xxx*

the exercitive/directive speech act of l. 87 which takes shape in the direct and brusque order (“you have to keep your trousers on”), is ‘externally’ mitigated by the justification “because I need to do something”. This is a grounder which is then reinforced by an elliptical allusion to the hypothetical alternative “otherwise”, pronounced with a suspensive intonation. In D.’s next turn the directive is reinforced by the recommendation given in the tag closing the turn. As far as P. is concerned, I have already observed the absence at the opening of the encounter of the expected “acknowledgement of greeting” to D.’s greeting and its replacement with a dispreferred marked choice, a comment on the interactional setting: “we’re new around here”. The style of this comment is not only non-deferential but is also slightly paternalistic

Doctor-patient dialogue: a case study

191

such that D. might interpret it as irreverent and anyway deviating from the routine patterns of institutional politeness. P. will not conform to a deferential style in the rest of the dialogue either. We do not know if this is intentional or not, maybe caused by his inadequate metapragmatic competence. Judging by D.’s communicative behavior, he would seem to have opted for the first interpretation, attributing intentionality to P.’s non-deferential behavior, reading this not as a clue but as a signal. After all, it is a well-known interactional norm that unexpected behavior tends to be interpreted as intentional. During the whole dialogue, P.’s adherence to institutional politeness towards the professional is rare, to say the least. For instance, he utters the deferential allocution “doctor” only twice: once when taking his leave (l. 381) and once at line 151, at the crucial moment of the measurement of his blood pressure when, in the brief stretch of reported speech concerning the possibility of trying out the medicine suggested to him, he refers to his interlocutor as “doctor”. Apart from these two cases, P.’s lack of compliance with a deferential style which D. instead presumably expected, also on behalf of the professional category in general, can be observed also at lines 123-131: ll. 123-131

D. and. you’ve never been to an orthopedist’s? P. well. I went to one erm - once but he didn’t know the first time before I had all of these X-rays taken you know? and he goes to me he says that - he wants to see the X-rays and then I never went back:= D. = sit down.

In this excerpt P. designates the expert in question as “one” who “didn’t know”: no wonder if he “never went back”. D.’s reply, without pausing between the turns, is meaningful. Perhaps to put P. back in his place, D. uses a bold, non-mitigated directive, i.e. an order in an imperative mood with falling intonation: “sit down.” Once more devoid of any trace of deferential and ‘impolite’ trait is P.’s designation of the expert introduced at lines 168-169: ll. 168-169

P. Tenor tenore: Tenoretic that the doctor here who got me to do these X-rays gave me.

In this case too the doctor’s irritated reaction is very quick: at the first chance, three lines later, he chips in to stress P.’s bad behavior: l. 175

D. and then you stopped taking it.

192

Mitigation

And also in this case the evaluating attitude, the criticism veiled with sarcasm, does not produce an inhibitory effect on P. who, of the two possible illocutionary forces of the utterance – report of an action or scolding – activates the first. As a matter of fact, instead of justifying himself, he calmly repeats “and then I stopped taking it”, putting forward (sensible) reasons for his behavior, i.e. the suspension of the anti-hypertension medicine. D. will again try to reprimand P. for this suspension re-reading it as inconsiderate behavior: “because you couldn’t be bothered to take it anymore”. We can gather from these observations that D. has certain expectations regarding the interlocutor’s (appropriate) behavior, which P. does not meet, and vice-versa: the idea that the two participants have of appropriateness, of what is fitting in the “medical visit” type of activity, is not shared. We can presume that D.’s expectations regard, on the one hand, in a positive sense, manifestations of respect for his role and, on the other hand, in a negative sense, manifestations of sensitiveness to prohibitions or inhibitory moves made by him. As we have seen, P. refrains from both the former and the latter. This supposition on D.’s expectations might be corroborated by the fact that the same doctor will behave in a much more understanding and tolerant way in a dialogue with an elderly female patient who shows a scrupulously deferential style. For instance, she utters the allocution “doctor” twenty-three times during the visit.

5.8. MICRO-SEQUENCES OF (NON)-ATTUNEMENT 5.8.1. Topical and stylistic non-attunement In the TR1 there is only one example of formulation, which I have indicated as a moment of possible topical attunement (cf. 4.1.1.; Caffi, 2002) and which is about the content conveyed by the interlocutor. I have already examined this formulation in Chapter 3.3.1. to give an example of a case of professional formulation. In this paragraph I examine how this works inside a sequence, integrating a description based on conversational categories with a description based on categories of psychological provenance (cf. Chapter 4). The sequence in question is to be found at line 31, in the turn where D., with a formulation of the professional upshot (Hak and de Boer, 1996: 96; Thomas, 1989), picks up again and summarizes, translating it into medical language, the information given by P. up till then, which is also drawn from clinical sources (the X-rays). As we have already noted in the overall description of the dialogue, D. simultaneously makes a truncation (Neustein, 1989: 62) not of P.’s story but rather of P.’s attempt to introduce a new topic. This attempt not only is not ratified, but is totally ignored. In fact, starting his turn, D. uses “right, well”, to indicate a fresh start and so implicitly brings the possibility of digressing to an end. From a psychological

Doctor-patient dialogue: a case study

193

viewpoint, this is a transactional disqualification in Sluzki et al.’s (1967) sense. More precisely it is an ‘evasion’ (cf. 4.8.1.) from which emotive distance is inferrable. In the adjacent turn (l. 33) P. offers up an alternative formulation, “here it realx it really: hurts me”. This is a micro-sequence of failed attunement which can be further analyzed as follows: Sequence ll. 23-33 x 1) 2) 3) 4)

x

structural-topical description of the sequence: P.’s attempt to propose topic X (ll. 23-24); D. does not ratify X as a topic (a truncation, in Neustein’s 1989 terms) (l. 31); D. formulates the professional upshot (l. 31) P. ignores this formulation and reformulates the problem according to his point of view (l. 33). relational description of the sequence (Sluzki et al., 1967):

In the doctor’s turn (l. 31), an evasion, more specifically a variant of topical disqualification and a sub-type of Sluzki et al.’s (1967) transactional disqualification, is carried out. The two parameters typically affected in evasions, i.e. topical discontinuity and absence of signs of uptake (Sluzki et al., 1967; cf. 4.8.), are both involved in this case. Indeed, D. does not bring about a brusque topic change but rather a silent rejection of the possibility of introducing a topic put forward by P. in the previous turn. This amounts to metacommunicating: “you don’t have the right to introduce topics; I will introduce them”; and also: “I decide what we will talk about”. In this way, D. asserts an asymmetry of conversational (topical) powers regarding what can or cannot be promoted to the role of topic (cf. Bublitz, 1988). In the following turn (l. 33), P. redefines his problem and implicitly gives up on reproposing the topic not ratified as such. x

stylistic description of the sequence:

P.’s problem “this leg is really hurting me”, (l. 3), “it always hurts me here” (l. 8), is reformulated by D. in a technical register, with a formulation of the professional upshot (Hak and de Boer, 1996: 96). Yet, due both to his being worldly-wise and his knowledge of the cotext and of what Bally (1970 [1909]; cf. 4.1.) would have called “effects d’évocation”, i.e. starting from the register adopted until that moment, D. knows that P. is not familiar with this register. In this way, at the level of defining the relationship, D. affirms an asymmetry in the interlocutors’ knowledge and brings about a distancing effect.

194

Mitigation

In the turn of D.’s (l. 31) under examination, compared to the style introduced by the two partners (ll. 1-28), a sudden stylistic shift takes place: it is a sudden shift from a colloquial register to a technical register which causes an increase of emotive distance (Caffi and Janney, 1994b). D. brings about a stylistic disqualification which can be summarized as: “I decide how to speak”. In the next turn (l. 33), P. ignores D.’s formulation and reproposes his definition of the problem, and he does so in a non-technical register and in a paradigmatic affective mode given by the use of body-centered deixis (“here it realxxx it really: hurts me”). The result of these two simultaneous disqualifications triggered by the doctor in one single turn can be described in terms of Haley’s (1959) model as a negation of the “you” (second person singular) component of the message. The doctor’s message brings about a “non-you”: from a thematic viewpoint, D. not only does not ratify a possible topic, but he completely ignores the attempt to introduce it. It is as if D. said not only “I decide what to talk about, and put limitations on your right to speak”, but also, from a stylistic viewpoint, “I decide how to speak”. The overall result of this is a negation of the other person: “I am not speaking to you”. P.’s reaction to these disqualifications is in a way equally disqualifying: his reaction is a counter-disqualification, a move which, as we have seen in 4.8.2., is one of those expected by Sluzki et al. (1967) as a possible reply to a disqualification. In Hak and de Boer’s (1996) proposal, the second preferred member following a technical formulation is a simple confirmation. Instead, in this case, without supplying any signal of confirmation or acceptance of the expert’s technical definition, P. confirms his definition of the problem. This is a definition which is analogous in terms of content and form to the one already provided in the opening (l. 3, ll. 8-9): not in the least bit affected by the professional clinical summary which D. has just provided, P. reproposes his problem in his own way, with the immediacy of pure deixis (Bühler’s 1934 deixis ad oculos). D.’s formulation is practically ignored by P., who carries on along his own lines. It is as if P. redefined in his turn both the thematic and the stylistic competence, thus metacommunicating: “I’m speaking about my problem, in my way”. To use Kamio’s (1994; 1995) theory of territory of information, P. brings the formulation of the problem back into his own territory and – as this is an experience of which he surely has greater competence, namely the pain in a part of his body – he can put forward this experience by means of assertions in direct form, which are enhanced by his repeated (ll. 65, 69, 74, 117) clarifications in painful lamentation (l. 65): “it’s right here: it hurts me right here”. In conclusion, due to the density of disqualifying micro-messages, D.’s formulation fails as an attempt at thematic attunement, in the sense that both parties stick to their parallel positions, and so D.’s definition of the problem is not integrated with P.’s one. The formulation also fails as an attempt at relational distancing, i.e. at putting P. back in his place, in the sense that, judging by P.’s reaction, it has no inhibitory effectiveness (Bliesener and Siegrist, 1981: 186) at all. The formulation fails as an attempt at re-establishing the complementarity of the

Doctor-patient dialogue: a case study

195

interlocutors’ communicative roles: D.’s as the one who decides what to speak about and how, and P.’s as the one who accepts these prerogatives and implicitly recognizes D. as being endowed with powers (conversational and others). In short, this sequence is therefore one of non-attunement. A sub-topic is grafted onto this sequence: D. asks about the circumstances which caused the pathology “but how did you manage to do this thing to yourself”. The question is formulated with a return to a more colloquial style and with the clear intention of laying responsibility on P. This can be deduced from D.’s using the verb “to do” twice compared with the axiologically neutral statement “you have had a muscular tear” of line 31. Beyond the possible abductive interpretations which – as one should not fail to stress again – are interesting only if they can be anchored to some trace on the surface of the text, from the analysis of this micro-fragment, we clearly see the need to integrate descriptions from various viewpoints, both structural and stylistic, so as to reconstruct, at least in part, the complexity of the communicative exchange in the diverse parameters and diverse layers of meaning production simultaneously involved. 5.8.2. Micro-sequences of stylistic attunement I will now examine two fragments illustrating micro-sequences of stylistic attunement. The first, already mentioned in Section 5.2.2. with regard to the closures of the case-history phase, is the following: ll. 133-140

P. ah: he said that:: the cartilage was - was worn out in the kneecap, D. IN THE VERTEBRA! ((irritated tone)) P. huh! - a bit of that isn’t it? D. it’s that.

This is a quadripartite sequence which can well be described as a language negotiation sequence in Auer’s (1984) terms 6 where the more powerful speaker, after making a correction (IN THE VERTEBRA!) of P.’s formulation (“the cartilage was worn out in the kneecap,”) 6

In a field of sociolinguistic research devoted above all to code switching, Auer (1984: 21) defines a language negotiation sequence as that which begins with a disagreement among two or more participants “about which language to use for interaction and ends as soon as one of them ‘gives in’ to the other preferred language”, Giles’s accommodation theory will integrate the sociolinguistic perspective with a psycholinguistic one, in which cases of speech convergence are explained essentially by a speaker’s desire to gain approval from the interlocutors and those of divergence by her/his desire to differentiate her/himself from them (Thakerar et al., 1982: 205). Interesting proposals of a coding system which renders accommodation theory more operatively suitable by describing its different strategies are put forward in Jones et al. (1999).

196

Mitigation

accepts, in fourth slot, the non-technical definition of the less competent speaker (“it’s that.”). It is as if the doctor capitulates in the face of the stubbornness, veiled with aggression (which is revealed also by the use of the end-tag) of the patient who, despite having been corrected repeats, almost defying the technical codes, “it’s a bit of that isn’t it?”. If, from D.’s viewpoint, the clumsy non-technical formulation with which the patient recounts the diagnosis of another doctor might sound rude, perhaps even threatening to the reputation of the experts in general, the semantically vaguer but at least not ridiculous paraphrase provided by the patient sounds like a possible personal threat. An open conflict can arise from this. So, this is why the doctor cuts off this possibility by accepting, even repeating, P.’s imprecise and impatient formulation. It is a mere echo-reply which has no content-value but seems to serve essentially at a relational level, metacommunicating something like “alright, okay, calm down”. At an interpersonal level the relationship is monitored in the direction of greater symmetry, given that even the less competent interlocutor is implicitly authorized to produce a contribution to the diagnosis and especially to produce it in his way. At the same time, P.’s lack of deference and D.’s aggressiveness produce not particularly well-concealed conflict zones on the surface of the dialogue. This sequence represents a solution, albeit temporary, to the open conflict: one party gives in to the pressurizing of the other, attuning himself to his wavelength, represented in this case by the stylistic register. The second example has already been discussed in Chapter 3 to illustrate, as well as the mitigation functioning, also the following thesis: to separate a sequential description from a stylistic description produces an inadequate and somehow misleading picture. The example is the following: ll. 361-366

D. yours isn’t a real slipped disc. ((lit. real and true (FIG) )) it’s only a li little+DIM bit: P. just a touch+DIM D. just a touch+DIM

This tripartite sequence can be described, as already noted, in terms of accommodation theory (Giles and Coupland, 1991) because here too the more powerful interlocutor adapts her/his register to that of the other party. But the accommodation implied by this fragment, as I have already maintained, goes beyond the sociolinguistic layer established by the choice of register, investing emotive layers too. P. completes D.’s turn on the latter’s attempt at an attenuated formulation of the diagnosis (first the litotes, then a marker of uncertainty) through the expression “just a touch”, which is both colloquial and also mitigated by means of a bush, the diminutive suffix. The partners’ sharing of a minimizing attitude expressed by an informal

Doctor-patient dialogue: a case study

197

and mitigated style reshapes their relationship on more equal and friendly terms. This sequence produces temporary empathic attunement.

5.9. DISTRIBUTION OF MITIGATORS Some questions remain to be answered. First of all: which of the two interlocutors uses mitigation more often? It is both easy and difficult to answer this question: considering D.’s greater culture, it is easy (and the circularity of the reply can escape no-one) to predict that it is D. who is in charge and who uses a wider range of linguistic and stylistic means, among which those of attenuating modulation. This prediction turns out to be true, as expected. Having said this, it is difficult to establish correlations, on the one hand, in a sociolinguistic perspective, between mitigation and other fixed external factors other than the interlocutors’ professional roles (age, sex, geographic origin, etc.), and on the other hand, in the pragmatic perspective which is adopted herein, between mitigation and other discourse-internal factors. P. does not mitigate his utterances; rather, he reinforces them. Besides being characterized by the previously noted basic expressive tonality, or affect key of complaint, his utterances, in a strictly affective mode (Bally’s mode vécu; cf. 2.2.1.), often have the immediacy of substandard speech which readily uses direct speech as a strategy both of syntactic simplification and for the introduction of different opinions (ll. 53-54 “she said listen I had this injection”). When P. mitigates, saying in an excusing tone, “My blood-pressure I’ve got fairly high blood pressure” (l. 159), he does so by implementing a ‘natural’ (cf. 2.3.1.) mitigation of the perlocutionary purpose/outcome ‘alarm’ produced by D.’s assessment, a verdictive speech act, in the neighboring turn “your blood pressure’s high isn’t it?”. In this case we have a sort of role-reversal, given that it is P. who tries to soothe D., providing a topic which minimizes the problem, redepicting it as a habitual state. If then D. is the one who mitigates, the next questions are: are there significant correlations between types of mitigation and salient moments within the different phases of the encounter? Are there correlations between the distribution of the mitigators and the type of interactional aim pursued? Where is D.’s mitigation concentrated? In what phase of the encounter and in which acts are the mitigators more frequent? What type of mitigation is it? In order to answer these questions, we need to go over the analysis proposed in Section 5.3. once more, and observe the passages where the mitigators tend to be concentrated. Some of these, and the phases where they can be found, as well as being indicated in the analytical table, have also been analyzed in the previous paragraphs: here I will only briefly dwell on those passages where there is a concentration or even an accumulation of mitigating devices. It can easily be seen from the table of pp. 177-185 that the phases where the mitigating

198

Mitigation

operations are the most frequent – and thus where column two is the most frequently used – are the diagnosis phase at lines 101-115 and the treatment phase at lines 351-378. Before examining the above-mentioned phases and excluding, because of their brevity, the two moments of opening and closure of the dialogue – and after all, the former has already been considered – phase 2, the case-history (ll. 3-61), deserves a quick comment. In this phase, apart from the two symmetric and consecutive cases of transactional disqualification of lines 31-35 (cf. 5.8.1.), it is at line 61, with the already noted sarcastic modulation by D., “these have even been taken off the market”, that we have the moment of greatest inferrable distancing which is at the same time cognitive and emotive: D. distances himself from the propositional and illocutionary subject “proposal to follow an alternative therapy”, and he does so in an emotively marked way with evaluation indicators (cf. Chapter 4). In doing so, D. also distances himself from the speaker of the proposal itself. In phase 3, (ll. 61-154), the occurrences of mitigation are concentrated in particular at lines 101-112, where the moment of diagnosis is weakened. In phase 5, that of the indication of treatments (ll. 219-380), instances of mitigation become more frequent and take the shape of objectivization shields (cf. 3.3.4.), that is to say, the ‘ego’ as the source of the utterance is cancelled and is replaced by impersonal constructions (ll. 222223 “it is necessary to hear an orthopedist”) or a third person. The use of mitigating means reaches its peak at lines 352-355: ll. 352-355

D. and what’s more he works at the xxx [name of hospital] in xxx [place name] so if it was necessary to do I don’t know paradoxically to operate [... ...] this can’t can’t +can’t* be excluded

One can make out in the background is an assertive evaluation which might be qualified as probable: “perhaps an operation will be necessary”. This evaluation is mitigated by an accumulation of lexical and syntactic means which tend to make it seem more distant: the prognosis is reduced to a mere hypothesis. In addition, the key-word “operate”, which triggers off the various instances of mitigation, is iconically more distant, deferred in the turn. The hypothesis of an operation is given almost incidentally, almost picked out at random from a vast range of possibilities. To use the categories presented in 3.4., it is a topical lateralization shield obtained by inserting “and what’s more”. An eventuality shield, given by the hypothetical construction, is grafted onto this topical shield. In this passage, mitigation is brought about by syntactic means, i.e. the subjunctive of the hypothetical construction and the impersonal construction; by lexical means, i.e. the speech marker “I don’t know”, which functions in this case as an exemplification marker, similar to “let’s suppose that”, “for instance”; and the evaluation adverb “paradoxically”. This can be

Doctor-patient dialogue: a case study

199

paraphrased with a metacommunicative gloss such as “let’s assume”, “supposing”, qualifying the utterance in its totality. In fact, this is an utterance adverb which qualifies the possible world, a qualification which in its turn reacts with the propositional content: the authorized implicature is something like “I am not convinced that an operation is necessary”. The adverb, stylistically incongruous with the context and the co-text, marks a definite rising of register and can be interpreted as an emotive involvement cue (Arndt and Janney, 1987), although indexing detachment: indeed, the moment is a delicate one, in which D. must start to pass on a piece of unpleasant information and its predictable alarming perlocutionary effects. This example illustrates the simultaneous involvement and intertwining of heterogeneous interactional parameters: topical salience, epistemic certainty, institutional knowledge/power, formality (high register, syntactic complexity) and emotive involvement. What can we conclude from these observations? First of all, it is manifest that the instances of mitigation in phase 3, that of the diagnosis, and those of phase 5, that of the treatment, are aimed respectively at self-defense and at protecting the other party. Fraser’s distinction (1980) between self-serving mitigation and altruistic mitigation is a good starting point. Considering that it is impossible to make a clear-cut distinction between the two, because in interaction, saving one’s own face goes hand in hand with saving the other’s face (in accordance to Edmondson’s (1981) ‘hearer-supportive maxim’), mitigation can concern especially either one or the other face. In the diagnosis phase, D. protects especially himself; this is a sign of professional prudence, that is, caution (cf. Peyrot, 1987; Bergmann, 1992) at the moment when he takes on the responsibility of making a judgment about the pathology: the types of mitigation employed in this phase concern, above all, the reduction of responsibility by means of displacing it to other sources. Instead, in the prognosis phase, at the moment when he indicates the various treatment possibilities, D. protects especially his interlocutor, and, in his personal interpretation of tact, uses mitigation to remove the conflict between the duty to inform P. about a certainly undesired eventuality and the duty not to needlessly alarm a patient who already has several problems (among these, hypertension, which has just been ascertained). Apart from straying from the point a few times – I am thinking especially of “paradoxically” – the latter need prevails over the former, and D. lets himself go, even at the cost of becoming inconsistent with the previous diagnosis, and so he resorts first to the litotes and then to the diminutive of the colloquial lexeme (una puntina), in the already examined convergence sequence of lines 359362: “yours isn’t a real slipped disc [...] just a touch”. Recalling Giles et al.’s (1979) distinction between instrumental needs and relational needs (cf. 1.7.), we can conclude from these observations that, while self-serving mitigation in the diagnosis phase meets instrumental needs more than anything else, the second, altruistic

200

Mitigation

mitigation in the treatment phase meets relational needs in particular. In the two central phases of the visit, there is an increase in the recourse to mitigation, which thus proves to be a useful tool in managing the most delicate interactional moments. The examples discussed in this paragraph confirm that the basic function of mitigation is to favor the achievement of the interactional goals of the speech acts (or of wider speech units) both at an instrumental and at an interpersonal level, both at a content and at a relational level. They also show that mitigation works in various ways on both the illocution, for instance reducing the diagnosis to a mere hypothesis, and on the perlocution, for instance distancing undesired effects such as alarm.

5.10. MITIGATION AND MONITORING OF EMOTIVE DISTANCES In the previous paragraphs I have tried to reconstruct on a presumptive basis how emotive layers are involved in the co-production of the dialogue. In other words, I have tried to integrate a pragmatic and at least in part sociolinguistic description of verbal interaction with a psycholinguistic one. The parameter of emotive closeness inferrable from the choice of utterances has been useful, in its generic form, in indicating the openings and closures that can be presumed at the level of emotive communication on the basis of subtle textual cues. As I have repeatedly stressed, such a dimension must not be considered in isolation with regard to the other dimensions which, on the contrary, it reacts to and interacts with. Moreover, it is by means of the observation of a sequence of turns, however brief it may be, that it is possible to reliably reconstruct the functioning of the interaction as a whole. I have already examined the outcome of P.’s non-attunement to institutional politeness that D. evidently expects, namely, D.’s brusque and almost military “sit down” of line 131. In the opposite direction, that of a rebalancing of the relation towards greater emotive closeness, here are two examples of moves by D. which can also be interpreted co-textually as a reaction to previous moves by P.. The first example is given by the sequence at lines 151155: ll. 151-155

P. but I: you know talking about it I said I’ll try with the doctor if I can do it I don’t know. - if they can do something for me,-D. bear in mind that those medicines there have been taken off the market now precisely because: not very useful.

In P.’s turn, the request made to D. in the previous turns regarding the latter’s endorsement of P.’s “fellow-villager”’s suggestion of trying other medicines becomes less urgent and less

Doctor-patient dialogue: a case study

201

important. This is an example of an illocutionary mitigation aiming at weakening the intensity of the act. In fact, the previous request is commented on by P. at a distance with a gloss, through the reproduction of a fragment of an interior monologue which emphasizes the slightly casual character of the request (“you know talking about it”). By means of this strategy, which we may well define as “metacommunicative”, the previous request is rehierarchized: its importance for P. and its coerciveness for D. are reduced. In this turn, mitigation does not concern only illocutionary aspects but also aspects relating to self-presentation and the shaping of a self-image. Indeed, in the same turn P. attributes himself scarce competence and limited decisiveness, thus reducing his knowledge and power with if-clauses (“if I can do it”) and at the same time increasing D.’s knowledge-power. In addition, in the reported speech, he refers to D. as the “doctor”, a linguistic choice inherently characterized by a deferential trait of recognition of the interlocutor’s role. This deferential choice is even more remarkable because it is grafted in the authenticity of a fast live contact with the speaker’s inner world provided by the reproduction of the endophasic speech. How does D. react to this move? After having scornfully disposed of the alternative therapeutic possibility in the already quoted turn at l. 61, he resumes his indirect refusal also in a literal way (removing “even” and adding “bear in mind that”), but externally mitigates it with a cause-and-effect construction. The latter takes the form of a litotes “because not very useful”, which is barely credible at a referential level – perhaps more important reasons are necessary before a medicine is taken off the market – but which is significant at the level of the relationship and of a symmetrical shaping of self, as it is a clue to a willingness to compromise, in short of a sign of a more easy-going attitude. A second example of the chain of functioning of the various layers of meaning production, from the linguistic ones to the emotive ones, is the following, at lines 204-208: ll. 204-208

P. ah I was a bit dizzy and so I said to myself maybe it’s the tablet that makes me a bit:: +anyway, I’ll take them* D. we can try other t t tablets, mmm? - that don’t +make you so dizzy*

P.’s giving in to D.’s pressing orders concerns both the content and the relation: P. promises to start following the treatment again and, in doing so, in the punctuation of the sequence of events (Watzlawick et al., 1967), obeys D.; moreover, his compliant utterance is pronounced at a lower volume. 7 His adoption of a one-down role is complete, investing content and relation. After this giving in, and only at this point, does D. for the first time during the dialogue use an 7

As Anolli and Ciceri (1992: 151) point out, studies on the correlation between paralinguistic and personality traits, in particular Mallory and Miller (1958) identify an efficient sign of submission in an inadequate volume.

202

Mitigation

inclusive first person plural, with an enallage of solidarity which will be used again at line 378. At a relational level, and integrating the other possible interpretations of the same turn, we can give the following, I think plausible, interpretation: once his one-up role, in the communication and in the institutional task in course, is assured, D. can then make some concessions to empathy.

5.11. CO-VARIANCE AMONG PARAMETERS In the examination of the dialogue which has been carried out so far, numerous cases of covariance among heterogeneous parameters have been pointed out. In particular, the parameters of ‘epistemic certainty’, ‘knowledge-power’ (competence and institutional role) and ‘emotive closeness’ are interdependent. Here I will dwell on a single example in order to further clarify this crucial point, which makes it possible, among other things, to project the handling of elements which modify the utterance, for instance modal verbs, as not limited to the speakerpropositional content relation, but sensitive also to the speaker-hearer relation, including the modal attributes (Sbisà, 1989) of both. Let’s consider the moment where D., closing the phase of the visit on the examination table, formulates the diagnosis. D. does this in a polyphonic way, making reference to other voices, mixed in with each other: more specifically, he defers to the “clinical file”, the “CATscan” and another, not better specified, colleague. This is at lines 106-117: ll. 106-117

D. = as a matter of fact in your file: > I just wanted to do this dio è passato neanche un mese< perciò non è:: però: (Rt, TR6, A42) P. I went to my primary care physician who prescribed strong Bactrin. then after a week of Bactrin the paxx pain: D. yes. ((lit. no)) but I had told you to come in if it didn’t improve didn’t I? P. yes. - right. but thxx the doctor had told me to try with strong Bactrin for a week: I thought in any case on the twenty-second: xxx I was busy ‘cause I have an elderly person with me at home= D. =I had told you to come in didn’t I? if the situation didn’t: didn’t: improve. >well ((lit. God)) it’s been not even month< so it’s not:: but:

In example 3), after the patient’s complaint, the doctor initially uses other-correction introduced by no. io però (‘yes but I’) (cf. Stame, 1994) and then reproaches her in io le avevo detto di venire (‘I had told you to come in’), where the ‘mild’ verb of saying ‘to tell’ does not

Grammar of mitigation in doctor-patient dialogue

219

reflect the full intensity of the illocutionary force of the original directive (for a discussion of intensity cf. 2.2.). The reproach is repeated in the fourth turn (‘I had told you to come in… didn’t I?’), underscoring the patient’s non-compliance with the instructions and contradicting the patient’s account. The underlying problem of the exchange is a conflict of competences as to who is responsible for the therapeutic process. On the surface (cf. Orletti, 1994), we have the patient’s agreement (sì. - esatto, ‘yes. - right’), which introduces a wide range of excuses (i.e. the opinion of another doctor introduced by the indirectly authenticity-enhancing m’ha detto ma provi con il…; the closeness of the following visit; the care of an elderly person). The doctor then repeats his reproach verbatim, but he also mitigates it by means of the restrictive protasis se non migliorava la questione (‘if the situation didn’t improve’) and the reference to an attenuating circumstance introduced by an interjection. This increases the degree of informality (dio è passato neanche un mese, ‘well, it’s been not even a month’). Other-repair occurs when the doctor accepts the patient’s excuse (ho detto tanto il ventidue, ‘I thought in any case on the twenty-second’) as a clinically relevant excuse. In other words, after telling off the patient, the doctor mitigates his original negative illocution to attenuate the patient’s failure to comply with his instructions: the doctor circumscribes his reproach thus reducing its severity. The risk of an open conflict at first seems to have been avoided thanks to the doctor’s conciliatory conclusion (perciò non è::, ‘so it’s not::’), but it re-emerges at the end of the turn, where però (‘but’) is uttered with a suspended intonation, signaling an incomplete absolution of the patient. We see here, at any rate, that mitigation plays an integral role in conflict comanagement (for a discussion of Italian examples, cf. Fele, 1991). The reason why the example can be seen as a transitional case between natural and non-natural mitigation can be summed up as follows: the doctor metapragmatically knows (i.e. not on the basis of some specific knowledge, but simply as a speaker of Italian) that a reproach is negative for the recipient and bears unwelcome perlocutionary effects. Hence, as we have just seen, he feels the need to mitigate it in more than one way, both locally and in a multi-turn sequence. The preceding discussion makes it possible to sketch a first answer to the issue raised in Section 6.1. – whether speech act theory alone can account for mitigating phenomena. The answer, I believe, is that despite being insufficient by itself, speech act theory is indeed compatible with conversational approaches. For, as the example clearly shows, the modulation or adjustment of both illocutionary and sequential phenomena contributes to the general mitigated shape of the exchange. Hence, it seems unreasonable to think that the description of any complex encounter can benefit from the use of mono-theoretical tools. I believe that the notions of speech act and mitigation must be integrated into a wider conversational approach involving a number of other criteria, in particular the sequential perspective. At the same time, a conversational approach alone cannot explain why a speaker uses a given utterance at a given stage of the exchange. Therefore, it is not possible to fully understand a sequential mechanism without having first understood and analyzed its component local mechanisms, and vice versa,

220

Mitigation

it is not possible to fully interpret any given particular local mechanism without having first understood the sequential mechanism of which it is a part. The process of the co-construction of meaning, which was the object of the fine-grained analysis of Chapter 5, is affected by a number of different factors. In order to start exploring these, it is necessary to work with the tools we have, even if they are few and heterogeneous, and make an effort to try to integrate them into a wider, more flexible framework.

6.5. NON-NATURAL MITIGATION 6.5.1. Lenitive mitigation The phrase ‘lenitive mitigation’ is used in the present work to refer to mitigation affecting directive and exercitive speech acts, notably orders and, at a lower degree of authoritativeness, requests. Such acts are inherently manipulative. Following Searle (1975), their direction of fit is from words to the world (i.e. the world adjusts to the words) and their focus is on states of affairs to be attained. Such acts inherently intrude into others’ personal territory, thus being, in Brown and Levinson’s (1987) terms, face-threatening. The main function of mitigation in connection with directives and exercitives is to reduce the recipient’s obligations, while at the same time reducing the potential face-threats for both interactants if they are refused. It is extremely difficult in such a situation to make a clear-cut distinction between illocution and perlocution. In fact, the object of mitigation is not an external consequence of the act, but an aspect of the act itself, namely its counting as an attempt on the part of the speaker to make the recipient do something. According to Searle (1969), this is the essential constitutive rule for directives, the rule having to do with the very essence of a speech act, i.e., in the case of directives, what makes a speech act ‘count as’ an order, an instruction, a request, and so on. In addition, Searle (ibid.) claims that there is a preparatory constitutive rule – corresponding to Austin’s (1962) type A felicity condition – requiring an ability on the part of the recipient to perform the requested act. A number of pragmatic and sociolinguistic studies of requests in different languages (e.g. House and Kasper, 1981) have found that the most frequent strategy of mitigation – we might say the preferred lenitive mitigation – consists in asking whether this preparatory condition is valid, using expressions like ‘can/could you please do X?’. In order to provide a more general outline of mitigation that can cope with different types of speech acts, it is worth recalling Wunderlich’s (1976) concept of Erfolgreichsein. Wunderlich describes three kinds or degrees (Arten oder Graden) of Erfolgreichsein (‘being successful’), which are needed to fulfill the act. These are:

Grammar of mitigation in doctor-patient dialogue

221

1) the recipient must know (in compliance with the speaker’s intention) that the speaker is expressing a given stance; 2) the recipient must choose (in compliance with the speaker’s intention) a corresponding attitude; 3) the recipient or the speaker, depending on the type of speech act, must meet the interactional condition (Interaktionsbedingung) or obligation that has been introduced. These three conditions are summed up respectively in the ideas of understanding, acceptance, and compliance (Verstehen, Akzeptieren, Erfüllen). Understanding and acceptance belong to the same immediate interactive situation and are closely connected, at least if we assume that something has to be understood before it can be accepted. As Wunderlich points out, Grice (1968: 1-18) speaks of ‘exhibitive’ and ‘protreptic’ aspects of speech acts. A speech act shows something about the attitudes of the speaker while at the same time aiming at eliciting specific attitudes in the recipient. Should a speech act fail to be understood or accepted, further interactional elaboration (Ausarbeitung) is needed. Normally, a speaker who does not receive any signal that her/his act has not been understood or accepted by the recipient can infer that the latter has understood and accepted it. Wunderlich applies these notions to different types of speech acts, which he classifies differently from either Austin or Searle. 5 In terms of Wunderlich’s distinctions, we may say that lenitive mitigation is primarily linked to the erfüllen (i.e. the third level in the fulfillment of an illocution), whereas tempering mitigation (which will be discussed in the next section) is connected to the first two levels, i.e. understanding and acceptance. An interesting approach to these two types of mitigation is suggested by Ervin-Tripp et al. (1990) in a sociolinguistically oriented developmental psychological study of a large corpus (1269 acts) of ‘control acts’, above all requests, made by children aged 2-11 (cf. also French, 1984). Ervin-Tripp et al. introduce a ‘cost’ variable for the requested action, and observe, surprisingly, that for ‘low-cost requests’ where the speaker (a child) would normally tend to take the success of the action for granted, politeness (a term used by the authors in alternation with ‘mitigation’) actually increases the possibility of refusal by the recipient (an adult). ErvinTripp et al. conclude that “basically the best tactic for achieving cooperation in these cases of low cost appears to be a simple, explicit, direct form” (Ervin-Tripp et al., 1990: 322). During the past ten years, pragmatic and sociolinguistic investigations of lenitive mitigation, particularly studies of the illocutionary act ‘request’, have been extremely rich and detailed. 5

According to Wunderlich (1976), the third kind of Erfolgreichsein is not applicable to acts introducing new interactional conditions like ‘Satisfactives’ and ‘Retroactives’, or to acts introducing only specific interactional conditions like ‘Representatives’. Moreover, the second type of intention is not present in acts like ‘Declarations’ and ‘Vocatives’. Against this background, Wunderlich raises the issue of the interests and usefulness of fulfilled acts, i.e. who is a speech act successful for? However, he does not provide any answer to this question.

222

Mitigation

Many of these have been rooted in Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness and have approached different languages from a contrastive perspective. This rich body of research has made recapitulatory works like that of Kerbrat-Orecchioni (1990-1994) particularly useful. Nevertheless, there continues to be a need for similar research on Italian, which is still a neglected field despite some promising early work (e.g. Benincà et al., 1977). 6.5.2. Tempering mitigation Tempering mitigation reduces the validity of assertives and verdictives. The speaker either mitigates a judgment or limits its scope. According to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (2002: 1800) the verb ‘to mitigate’ means “make milder in manner or attitude, make less hostile”. In tempering mitigation, that which is made milder or less threatening is first and foremost the speaker’s obligation to take responsibility for what s/he is saying, which can entail the risk of losing face. Tempering mitigation results in a reduction either of the speaker’s commitment to what is said, in the case of assertives, or of the categoricalness of a speaker’s judgment, in the case of verdictives. Tempering mitigation thus fulfils the second sub-maxim of Quality, i.e. “do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence” (cf. Grice, 1975). It can affect either the ‘phrastic’ element of the assertive act or the ‘neustic’ element (cf. Hare, 1970; Hübler, 1983). That is, it can either call the validity of the act’s propositional content per se into question or project an attitude of uncertainty on the part of the speaker toward this content for the listener’s benefit. This latter element can be thought of in terms of the degree of epistemic commitment to the propositional content of the illocution. Tempering mitigation is of central importance in the modification of linguistic assertiveness, 6 which it can modulate in either upgrading or downgrading directions. In studying this type of mitigation in conversation, we see how logical-propositional aspects of speakers’ commitments to the truth of propositions interact with both sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic factors. Sociolinguistically, linguistic assertiveness is often related to the speaker’s and hearer’s respective power, while psycholinguistically, it often has to do with relations and images of the self that the speaker wants to convey to the hearer. Leech’s (1983) modesty maxim is an attempt to account for one aspect of this complex interplay: “in communicating to an interlocutor of higher status, one downgrades one’s own subjective certainty”. Nevertheless, even within a single language it is extremely difficult to find stable principles for analyzing real exchanges. This, in fact, is true of the modesty maxim in general, which is certainly too categorical and too clearly ethnocentric to be universally 6

In fact, assertiveness is a psychological category linked to the speaker’s self-confidence. No systematic study has been conducted as yet of possible connections between psychological assertiveness and linguistic assertiveness (aside from some impressionistic studies carried out mainly by psychologists) due to differences between these two quite different disciplines.

Grammar of mitigation in doctor-patient dialogue

223

valid. Moreover, the modesty maxim clashes even with the English use of understatement, which is so wide spread in British culture that it has become an unmarked form (cf. Hübler, 1983). Understatement is mainly related to self-presentation and the construction of positive face. Needs linked to self-presentation can, in fact, outweigh other social needs. In order to be operationally useful, Leech’s modesty maxim needs to be integrated into observations like those put forward by Kamio (1994; 1995) in his theory of the ‘territory of information’. Kamio’s theory, which is based on Japanese but can be applied to English, envisages links between modalizations of epistemic certainty in utterances conveying information and what he calls the speaker’s ‘territory’. He claims that in utterances conveying information about the speaker’s territory, (e.g. statements about her/himself as a person or about her/his private life), direct or non-modified forms conveying the certainty of the statement are unmarked choices, even if the interlocutor has a higher status. Lazzeroni (1994) discusses basic values in Indo-European verbal behavior from a diachronic perspective, focusing on the gradient nature of expressions of epistemic modality (from certainty to counter-factuality) and deontic modality (from will to desire). He seems to agree with Kamio in claiming that: in the epistemic modality, non-factual statements focusing on data of which the speaker has direct or personal experience are not compatible with the first person. The same cannot be said for factual and counter-factual statements focusing on the same kind of data. (Lazzeroni, 1994: 269; my translation, C.C.)

Lazzeroni envisions a connection between grammar and pragmatics in the form of a certain ‘compatibility’ between modality and the data making up the object of the dictum. This link has significant pragmatic implications that remain to be further elucidated for each language. In each individual language, specific phenomena have to be observed, especially co-occurrence restrictions on verbal moods, speaker’s inner states, and communicated contents. If supported by diachronic arguments like those provided by Lazzeroni, Kamio’s theory could be seen as an attempt to find relations between these variables in a broadly pragmatic framework. Such a framework, in turn, could lead to major generalizations about the languages observed. Going back to my main concern here – tempering mitigation in institutional contexts – irrespective of Kamio’s examples, 7 we still have to find an answer to the following question: in a given social group and within a given interaction, what are the speaker’s and recipient’s respective territories? Clearly, the answer to this question is crucial to analyzing doctor-patient encounters, where delimitations of territories and shifts between territories (cf., among others, Lacoste, 1981; Coupland et al., 1994) are major objects of negotiation between the participants. 7

It must be noted that some of these examples are artificial and highly unlikely.

224

Mitigation

Despite these warnings, Leech’s intuition about status and displays of confidence is a first acknowledgment of the existing link between these two heterogeneous dimensions. We may therefore extend the modesty maxim by specifying that in tempering mitigation in real exchanges the two factors ‘epistemic certainty’ and ‘power/social role’ are interrelated and express a co-oriented co-variance. As I have tried to show in the multi-dimensional analysis of Chapter 5, this dyadic correlation has to be integrated into other parameters (e.g. immediacy) in a systemic perspective. Such a perspective is in accordance with Givón’s (1989: 128) non-idealistic pragmatic approach, which claims that epistemic modality itself is crypto-pragmatic. Indeed, in Givón’s view, there are no propositional modalities as such, but rather only different modes of knowledge of sources of information. These range from direct modes of experience to mediated modes like hearsay or inference. On the whole, he says, human communication involves an intricate network of conventions concerning what speakers and hearers are entitled to expect of each other when carrying out their respective roles in communication. Within this vast network, which is all part and parcel of the pragmatics of language, only a small portion deals with strictly epistemic matters of truth or subjective certainty. Rather, even those modes that are primarily epistemic tend to shade gradually into other – intentional, social, or manipulative – modes. (Givón, 1989: 129-130; original emphasis)

According follows: a) b) c) d) e)

to Givón, the gradual shading from epistemic modes to actional modes is as epistemic modes of truth or probability; psychological modes of subjective certainty; intentional modes of wish, ability, or need; social modes of status, authority, power, or obligation; action modes of causation or manipulation (ibid.: 130).

At partial variance with Lazzeroni (1994), who envisages individual gradations of epistemic and deontic modality, Givón envisages a link between the two modalities along a continuum of modes. Givón does not analyze any real data showing how the shift from one mode to the other actually takes place. Neither does he put forward diachronic arguments about processes of grammaticalization or co-occurrence constraints on grammatical data and pragmatic factors. Nevertheless, he does point out linguistic realizations of different combinations of modes, ranging from basic prototypical ‘peak’ realizations (in which pragmatic mode and syntactic mode correspond) to various other more ‘indirect’ realizations (Givón, 1989: 152 ff.); and he calls our attention to the fact that subjectivity plays an important role even in those linguistic modes that are more closely connected with truth. According to Givón (ibid.), there is an

Grammar of mitigation in doctor-patient dialogue

225

oriented subjectivity that is decisive for the shift between modes, particularly the shift between the epistemic and psychological modes, which are marked by the greatest discontinuity. From a meta-theoretical point of view, the continuum discussed by Givón may be interpreted as a linguistic argument in favor of the classic Austinian pragmatic proposal (which is still valid in my opinion) that statements, as modes of action, can be judged by various criteria in addition to the true-false criterion (cf. Austin, 1962). Although there is no fixed correspondence between pragmatic types and syntactic types, what has just been said seems to confirm the fact that statements cannot be strictly separated from other, seemingly more ‘manipulative’ modes. Against the background of my own systemic, integrated pragmatic approach, which focuses on pragmatic modalizations of utterances in context rather than on linguistic modalities of utterances in isolation, Givón’s abstract continuum can be re-interpreted as suggesting a coexistence of intertwined parameters in a given interaction. My main objective in this book is precisely to observe the joint functioning of such heterogeneous parameters in a given context. It seems reasonable at this point to provide an example of a shift from one mode to another, by employing some categories derived from Austin’s speech act theory. An important sub-group of types of tempering mitigation includes mitigation affecting the ‘preparatory constitutive rule’ (cf. Searle, 1969) 8 of assertive-verdictive acts. Similarly to lenitive mitigation (cf. 6.5.1.), the mitigation of assertive-verdictive acts is introduced by preparatory formulas like ‘if I understand correctly’, ‘I may be wrong, but’, etc., which are commonly regarded as disclaimers. Such formulas limit the categoricalness of a judgment by reducing the speaker’s implied self-attributed competence (which in medical examinations clearly involves issues of authority and power). When power or knowledge are at stake, as in an important clinical diagnosis, mitigation takes the form not only of acknowledgments of uncertainty and metacommunicative disclaimers (e.g. ‘I may be wrong, but…’), but also of expressions referring to the incompleteness of the evidence. For instance, a doctor may emphasize the insufficiency of clinical tests by using utterances like ‘the finding so far is’. In the former case of acknowledgements of uncertainty, the mitigating strategy will be represented as subjective – having to do with the speaker’s inner mental state. In the latter case, the mitigating strategy will be represented as objective – having to do with the incomplete fulfillment of the external conditions necessary for pronouncing a judgment. From a pragmatic point of view, a clinical diagnosis can be seen as a verdictive speech act, i.e. an illocutionary act whose preparatory felicity conditions require authority and competence on the part of the speaker-agent. The act of ‘diagnosis’ is thus ideal for illustrating how different parameters of knowledge, power, role, or, to use Givón’s categories, modes of truth, subjective certainty, ability, manipulation, and so forth interact within the same speech act. 8

Austin (1962), as noted earlier, calls these ‘A felicity conditions’.

226

Mitigation

The preparatory modulation of the conditions for performing a verdictive act is symmetrically opposite to the type of modulation found in disclaimers. This former kind of modulation appears in utterances introducing diagnoses that reinforce the verdictive by strengthening the legitimacy of the verdict. For instance, in example 4) the doctor begins by referring to conditions favorable to making an accurate diagnosis. These conditions, which, in turn, are connected to additional felicity conditions (‘B conditions’ regarding the felicitous fulfillment of a procedure, as Austin, 1962 would call them) underscore the incontestability of results: 4)

D. ehm il materiale era abbondante quindi la diagnosi - si è fatta bene +non* ci sono stati dubbi. P. +bene*. (SpV, TR8, A41) D. erm the tissue was plentiful so the diagnosis - was made without problems +there* were no doubts. P. +without problems*.

6.6. LINGUISTIC MEANS OF LENITIVE AND TEMPERING MITIGATION In the next few sub-sections, on the basis of examples from my corpus collected in the Appendix B, I will provide a list of linguistic lenitive and tempering mitigating devices used in spoken Italian in the activity type ‘medical examination’. Following Hölker (1988), I will distinguish between primary means of mitigation, which cause mitigating effects directly, and secondary means, which produce mitigating effects by implicature. Primary means can be further divided into specialized means and non-specialized means. The former can produce mitigating effects alone, while the latter need to be combined with other means in order to produce mitigating effects. I will use the term ‘combination’ to refer to co-occurrences of different means of mitigation within the same speech act. If more than two means of mitigation occur in the same speech act – be these heterogeneous or belonging to the same grammatical category – I will speak of ‘cumulative use’. 6.6.1. Linguistic means of lenitive mitigation As we have seen, the ‘saying/doing’ of a doctor is inevitably characterized by a certain degree of directivity that is legitimized by her/his social and professional status. The doctor’s status reduces the need for redressive action. However, I still have not discussed the linguistic means by which this directivity is expressed or the connections between directivity and the

Grammar of mitigation in doctor-patient dialogue

227

construction of doctors’ self-images and of relationships that they want to convey to their patients. This twofold image-construction is depends importantly on mitigation. The following primary means of linguistic mitigation figure importantly in modifying directives: a) 5)

lexical means (see A1, A2, A3, A4) 9 D. si tiri un attimo su. (Rt, TR14, A1) D. sit up a little. ((lit. sit up a moment))

Example 5) is an explicit directive illocutionary act formulated in the imperative mood that is prototypical of orders. The only mitigating element in the utterance is the marker un attimo (‘a moment’), whose pragmatic function is the result of the lexicalization of its literal meaning. In other words, the imperative is attenuated through the doctor’s hyperbolic reference to the brevity of the patient’s first action in the examination. Through habitual use in spoken Italian, the phrase un attimo has reached what Salvaneschi (1995) suggestively calls the stage where it is “functionally exhausted” (my translation, C.C.), i.e. the semantic bleaching; having lost much of its semantic content, it has become a marker. Due to its semantics, this marker has come to be used not just in requests, but also in many other speech acts in spoken Italian. In the directive act above, the pragmatic effect of the attenuated order depends on the meaning of the marker itself. The temporal limitation of the requested act operates, by implicature, as a limitation on the doctor’s imposition and intrusion into the patient’s territory. After the visit, the doctor says: 6)

D. si vesta pure. (Rt, TR 13, 14, 16, A3) D. you can get dressed. ((lit. get dressed if you like))

6) is another example of an explicit directive in the imperative mood that is mitigated by a single lexical item. The adverb pure (‘if you like’) shifts the illocution within the deontic modality from an order to a permission. 7)

D. pian pianino si appoggi pure. (SpV, TR9, A4) D. now slowly ((lit. slow slowly+DIM)) lean if you have to.

9

As said before, the abbreviations A1, A2, A3, A4 etc. refer to the examples listed in Appendix B.

228

Mitigation

Similarly, in example 7), the adverb pure combines with another mitigating lexical expression, the duplicated adverbial form pian pianino (‘slow slowly+DIM’) (cf. Wierzbicka, 1991), to limit the urgency of the predication of the required action. 8)

D. voglio controllarla un secondo. (PC, TR3, A2) D. I want to check you a second.

In example 8) there is a single mitigating element, un secondo (‘a second’), which BlumKulka et al. (1989: 119) would call an “understater”. Un secondo operates in this example similarly to un attimo in example 5). In contrast to example 5), however, the directive in example 8) is realized by means of a verb expressing volitionality in the indicative mood. According to Searle, this makes it an indirect act stating the validity of the sincerity condition for a directive. In some other approaches, however, a verb expressing the speaker’s will or need is seen as the most direct form and is claimed to have even more illocutionary intensity than an imperative (cf. Ervin-Tripp, 1976; Ervin-Tripp et al., 1990; Aronsson and Thorell, 1999). 10 b)

syntactic and intonational means (see A7)

Lenitive mitigation is often realized by combinations of syntactic and intonational devices. 9)

D. se si prepara, (Rt, TR16, A7) D. if you get ready,

In example 9, for instance, an incomplete if-sentence is combined with a suspensive intonation (indicated by the comma). Syntactically, the if-construction consists only of the protasis; the apodosis is missing, but can be easily retrieved from the extralinguistic context (i.e., ‘if you get ready’ [‘I can check you’]). The directive (‘get ready’) is mitigated by the fact that the accomplishment of the requested action is attributed to the patient’s will rather than to the doctor’s. In the psychotherapeutic conversations in my corpus, one of the psychotherapists (a woman) systematically uses suspensive intonation as an attenuating device to mitigate the intrusiveness 10

Ervin-Tripp’s and her colleagues’ research on requests in child-adult interaction was discussed earlier (cf. 6.5.1.). In their view, the requested action in the examples above is ‘low cost’, which means that the most effective strategy for obtaining the patient’s compliance would probably be a direct, explicit act (cf. Ervin-Tripp et al., 1990).

Grammar of mitigation in doctor-patient dialogue

229

of her request, and combines this intonational device with other discourse devices. One of these is ‘information fishing’ (cf. Pomerantz, 1980; 1984), i.e. claiming that either her knowledge of something is incomplete or she has no access to a state of affairs necessary for making a decision. Sometimes, this device is also accompanied by lists of potential alternatives (characterized by lengthened vowels) from which the patient is expected to select the most relevant options. c) 10)

lexical and morphological means (see A9) D. quello però bisognerebbe:: ehm: intensificare un pochino - gli esami magari sull’intestino eh? (Rt, TR12, A9) D. that however we should ((lit. it would be necessary to)) erm: do some more in-depth - testing ((lit. to intensify testing a little+DIM)) maybe to check your digestive tract huh?

In example 10), the doctor’s opinion that further tests are necessary is weakened morphologically by the conditional form of the impersonal verb bisogna (‘be necessary’). This is used in the anacoluthon resulting from the contrastive focalization of the theme quello però (‘that however’). Lexically, the utterance is weakened by the uncertainty marker ‘erm’, the multi-functional mitigating device un pochino (‘a little+DIM’), the eventualization connective magari (‘maybe’), and the final element requesting agreement (‘huh?’), which is uttered with rising intonation and is similar to a consultative device (cf. Blum-Kulka et al., 1989). d)

combined and cumulative forms (see A6, A8, A12, A15, A16, A17)

Lenitive mitigation is most frequently realized in the corpus not by individual additions but by combinations or cumulative uses of linguistic devices internal or external to the head act. 11)

D. le do uno sciroppino da prendere. (PC, TR4, A6) D. I’ll give you ((lit. I give you)) a cough syrup+DIM to take.

In example 11), for instance, the doctor’s prescription is mitigated morphologically by the use of the diminutive. The doctor uses this diminutive to increase the likelihood of attaining the desired perlocutionary effect. I have already discussed this example from another perspective in 3.3.1. Here, suffice it to say that the semantic trait [-SERIOUS], which Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi (1994) consider to be typical of diminutives, triggers a number of implicatures. It

230

Mitigation

downgrades the doctor’s prescription and thereby also implicitly mitigates the severity of the disease and the patient’s possible concern, thus making the task more agreeable. In languages without diminutive suffixes like Swedish and English, this kind of mitigation is realized by restrictive qualifications of the designation, e.g. ‘little tuberculosis’, ‘little problem’, ‘little thyroidea’. These examples are taken from data collected by Aronsson and Sätterlund-Larsson (1987: 7), who label them instances of ‘euphemisms’. In example 11) there is also an instance of syntactic mitigation, i.e. the construction with the infinitive da prendere (‘to take’), which is introduced by the verb ‘to give’ and functions as an object predicate complement (cf. Skytte et al., 1991). There is also an instance of lexical mitigation, i.e. the choice of the verb ‘to give’ rather than ‘to prescribe’. The first person present tense le do (‘I give you’) is an example of suiting actions to words. Following Austin (1962, Lecture X), such a case is similar to an actual performative in that the doctor utters the words while writing the prescription. In examples 12), 13), and 14) combinations of devices generate so-called ‘external mitigation’ (cf. Blum-Kulka et al., 1989). Such combinations affect acts that are pragmatically subordinate to the head act realizing the general illocutionary function. 12)

D. sentiamo i polmoni - ha voglia di scoprirsi un attimo? guardiamo la gola un attimo. (PC, TR4, A8). D. let’s have a listen to your lungs - do you want to undress a moment? let’s have a quick look at your throat. ((lit. let’s look at the throat a moment))

In example 12), the main means of morphosyntactic mitigation is the use of the inclusive first-person plural ‘we’ indicating involvement (cf. Gumperz, 1982a). Similar uses are often found in baby-talk. Another morphosyntactic device in 12) is the so-called ‘imminent present’ (cf. Bertinetto, 1986: 338-339) which indicates a strategic intention, as Austin (1962) probably would have put it, to ‘suit actions to words’. This example instantiates other mitigating devices: in particular, the use of a consultative question (‘do you want to undress a moment?’) that externally mitigates the request (cf. BlumKulka et al., 1989). This is what conversation analysts call a ‘pre’ (or an indirect act, following Searle, 1975) referring to a preparatory condition for the request. In asking if the condition for the requested action holds, the doctor simulates a negotiation. The consultative question is further lexically mitigated by the multi-functional downgrader un attimo (see above). 13)

D. no ecco deve tenere su i pantaloni +perché* P. +ah sì. sì* D. ho bisogno di fare una manovra che se no:,

Grammar of mitigation in doctor-patient dialogue

231

P. sì. (PC, TR1, A12) D. no well you have to keep your trousers on +because* P. +right yes. yes* D. I need to do something ((lit. do a maneuver)) because otherwise:, ((lit. if not)) P. yes. Example 13) contains a bald on-record directive (‘you have to keep your trousers on’) characterized by a need-form, which, as we have seen, is considered by some analysts to be stronger than an imperative. The directive is mitigated by a grounder, i.e. perché ho bisogno di fare una manovra (lit. ‘because I need to do a maneuver’), which is reinforced, in turn, by the elliptical clause che se no (lit. ‘because if not’) uttered with suspensive intonation. The effect of this double mitigation is to introduce the possibility of a negative consequence (something to be avoided) if the patient does not comply with the doctor’s request. The strengthening of a grounder is a frequently-used strategy (see also example 14). Doctorpatient communication is often marked by alternating mitigating and strengthening strategies, even within a single short sequence. This creates a particular kind of pragmatic and rhetorical ambivalence that is typical of, and pervasive in, doctor-patient communication (cf. Chapter 4; Caffi, 1999a; Caffi, 1999b). In example 13) the reinforcement of the grounder takes place over a tripartite sequence, but in many other instances it occurs in a single turn. 14)

D. la cicatrice è un pochino aderente. dovrebbe massaggiarla un pochino così, +no*? P. +ah massaggiarla un po’?* (Rt, TR13, A15) D. the scar seems to have adhered to the surrounding tissue ((lit. is a bit adherent)). you should massage it a bit+DIM like that, +huh*? P. +massage it you say?*

In example 14) the lenitive mitigation of the directive (‘massage it’) reduces the scope of the duty imposed on the patient. This is achieved morphologically by the conditional form dovrebbe (‘should’), and lexically by the expression un pochino (‘a bit+DIM’). This latter expression is a variant of the generic mitigating expression un po’ (‘a little’), which, as said earlier, can be used in connection with many different types of illocutions. Here, un pochino is used as a tempering device in the first part of the turn, where it attenuates the predication of the assertive act, thus weakening the doctor’s negative assessment of the state of the scar. Such a turn-initial statement is also a textual mitigating device, a sort of grounder for the directive. At the end of the turn, the lexical agreement-seeking marker no? (‘huh?’) is used as what Blum-

232

Mitigation

Kulka et al. (1989) call a ‘consultative device’. 15)

D. […] io le proporrei se vuole una medicina apposta per vedere se riescxx - se riesco a farla dormire= (PsV, TR18, A16) D. […] I’d propose if you want a special medicine to see if I caxx - if I can make you sleep=

Example 15) is mitigated morphologically by the conditional form proporrei (‘I’d propose’), idiomatically by the consultative device se vuole (‘if you want’), and syntactically by the final clause explaining the reason for the doctor’s suggestion. Finally, example 16) below illustrates a peculiar instance of cumulative use of different types of mitigating devices. During a doctor’s ward round, a patient hospitalized for an operation asks the doctors to allow her to leave the ward and go to another ward of the hospital where her child is: 16)

P. senta volevo chiedere siccome il bambino ce l’ho al, all’ospedale xxx [name of the hospital] - non è che mi potreste fare un permesso per un’oretta (WR, TR12, A17) P. excuse me ((lit. listen)) I’d like to ask ((lit. I wanted to ask)) since the child is at at xxx hospital [name of the hospital]- could you possibly ((lit. isn’t it possible for you to)) give me a leave just for an hour+DIM

In this request, the attention-seeking marker senta (lit. ‘listen’) is followed by the illocutionary force indicating device (hereafter IFID) chiedere which is mitigated by the modal volere (‘want’). The latter, in turn, is attenuated morphologically by the polite imperfect volevo chiedere (‘I wanted to ask’), which Meyer-Lübke (1899, III, 118-124) calls Bescheidenheitsimperfektum (‘the imperfect of modesty’) (cf. Spitzer, 1922: 71-72; Bazzanella, 1990). This device can be seen as a shield, since it deletes one of the components of the deictic origin, i.e. the ‘now’. Another morphological device used in the utterance is the diminutive un’oretta (‘an hour+DIM’), which further reduces the scope of the request. Two other mitigating devices are employed as well, one textual, the other syntactic. These are the causal proposition explaining the reason for the request, and the expression non è che (lit. ‘isn’t it possible’),11 which turns

11

The use of the construction ‘non è che’ in spoken Italian is described by Bernini (1992), who refers to the construction as a “cleft sentence with extrapolation of the non” (ibid.: 191; my translation, C.C.;

Grammar of mitigation in doctor-patient dialogue

233

the utterance simultaneously into a negation (from a formal perspective) and a question (from a functional point of view). In terms of Givón’s (1989) continuum from prototypical interrogatives to prototypical negatives, the utterance introduced by non è che can be placed at the boundary between the two groups. Lenitive mitigation also relies on the following secondary means: e) 17)

secondary semantic means (see A5, A10, A11, A14, A38) D. mi fa questi esami: - con calma in questo periodo: […] (Rt, TR14, A5) D. you have these tests run ((lit. you do these tests for me)) at your convenience ((lit. with calm))

In example 17), the mitigating effect is realized semantically by means of the adverbial con calma (lit. ‘with calm’), which reduces the urgency of the requested action. Mitigation in this case is secondary, i.e. achieved by implicature, and is reinforced syntactically by the use of the indicative present tense with a jussive function (the doctor describes the patient in the act of performing the requested action), and morphologically by the ethical dative (mi, ‘for me’), which signals personal involvement. 18)

D. tenga sempre comunque del Buscopan in casa. qualcosa così. (PC, TR3, A10) D. keep always in any case some Buscopan available at home. something like that.

In example 18), only the attenuation of the directive affects the reference act; here, the phrase qualcosa così (‘something like that’) plays the role of an approximator or hedge in Lakoff’s (1972) terms. After initially reinforcing his order by means of the expression sempre comunque (lit. ‘always in any case’), the doctor adds the words qualcosa così to the proposition, making the latter more vague while at the same time mitigating the imposition. This allows the patient to decide to use a different drug than the one named by the doctor, if she prefers, to meet the request. The mitigating effect is achieved here by means of the semantic vagueness of the proposition. Such vagueness consists in suggesting possible variations in the prescription, thereby, in fact, reducing the patient’s obligation. 19)

D. […] dovrà fare o della fisioterapia o vedere un po’ […] (PC, TR1, A11)

original emphasis). According to Bernini, the attenuating value of ‘non è che + C’ makes this construction different from the one with ‘mica’ (ibid.: 205).

234

Mitigation

D. […] you will have to do some physical therapy or something along those lines […] In example 19), the doctor’s prescription is at first made categorical by the deontic modal dovere in the future tense (‘will have to’), and then weakened – in an almost contradictory way – through the addition of a generic option that ultimately gives the patient freedom to make her own choice. The examples discussed here are somewhat analogous to the cases of disqualification (cf. Haley, 1959) and equivocation (cf. Beavin Bavelas et al., 1990) discussed in Chapter 4. They affect the ‘am saying something’ component of the doctors’ interaction with their patients (cf. 4.7.1.). From the point of view of deontic logic, these cases can be seen as similar to structural pragmatic inconsistencies (cf. Azzoni, 1998). Example 20) consists of an assertive-verdictive act followed by an exercitive-directive act. Here, lenitive mitigation, which operates on the latter, is a secondary effect deriving from the semantics of the proposition. 20)

D. nel seno va bene. l’unica cosa che mi fa per la prossima volta è un’ecografia al fegato. (Rt, TR16, A38) D. in the breast it’s fine. the only thing I’d like you to do for me ((lit. you do for me)) on your next visit is to have an ultrasound of your liver.

The action prescribed in example 20) is indeed l’unica cosa, ‘the only thing’ the patient has to do. Such a designation reduces the weight of imposition. Moreover, the directive (‘have an ultrasound of your liver’) is mitigated by the doctor’s diagnostic assessment (‘the breast is fine’), which serves both as the premise for the request and as a justification for prescribing only a single test. In the next section, I will deal more extensively with tempering mitigation achieved by limitating phrases like ‘in the breast’. What I would like to point out here is the ethical dative mi (‘for me’), which signals involvement. 21)

D. io non so se qua ho il numero di telefono del: P. sì. delle volte: (PC, TR1, A14) D. I don’t know if I have the number of that: P. yes. one never knows: ((lit. some times))

Finally, in example 21), the doctor suggests the name of a specialist to his patient and then wonders aloud if he also has the specialist’s telephone number for the patient. Having interpreted the speech act as an offer to help him, the patient encourages the doctor to look for

Grammar of mitigation in doctor-patient dialogue

235

the number. In fact, what the doctor has literally formulated is the difficulty he might have in giving this information. The patient’s answer operates retroactively to select the possible illocutionary force of an offer to further cooperate. The patient says ‘yes’, implying ‘yes, look for it’, and then adds the downgrader delle volte (lit. ‘some times’). This is a colloquial brachylogy similar to the phrase per caso (‘by any chance’), which corresponds to the protasis of if-clauses like se a volte (l’avesse) (‘if you happen to have it’) and se per caso (‘if by any chance (you had it)’). The implied apodosis (something like ‘you would do me a favor’) can easily be inferred from the context and co-text. The phrase triggers an eventualizing modalization of the elliptical request and thus produces a secondary mitigating effect. In other words, the patient implicitly makes a desired state of affairs possible that depends, however, on the interlocutor’s good will. f) 22)

secondary metacommunicative means (see A18, A43) D. lei non faccia più nulla: +faccio tutto io* ((tono divertito)) P. +non xxx* D. lei ormai subisce. ((tono divertito)) P. io subisco. ((tono divertito)) (SpV, TR7, A18) D. don’t do anything else +I’ll do all the work* ((amused tone)) P. +not xxx* D. you put up with me. ((amused tone)) P. I put up with you. ((amused tone))

Example 22) is a case of transition between mitigationN and mitigationN-N. The former is the natural mitigation of the therapeutic act that the doctor is about to perform on the patient (he is playing down the unpleasantness of the examination to make the patient relax). The latter is the lenitive mitigation of the secondary exercitive linguistic action ‘prohibition’ (‘don’t do anything else’) necessitated by the therapeutic act. Similarly to what happened in example 3, mitigation is achieved here through the sequential format of the exchange, particularly the paired repetitions of the same utterances by the two partners. Also contributing to the mitigating effect, however, is the use of the same metacommunicative key in the encounter: the light tone chosen by the doctor and adopted by the patient. With his humorous tone and the joking faccio tutto io (‘I’ll do all the work’), the doctor constructs a micro-parody of the situation. 12 This strategy is similar to ‘fictionalization’

12

For a discussion of pragmatic aspects of parody cf. Rossen-Knill and Henry (1997). On pragmatic aspects of humor, cf. Raskin (1985), Attardo (1994), Attardo, ed. (2003).

236

Mitigation

in daily discourse (cf. Bange, 1986). The doctor is being ironic about own his active role in the examination and the complementary passive role of his patient. By dealing with the real state of affairs as if it were farcical, he (at least at the dialogical level) shows sympathy for the patient and tries to make her feel at ease. Example 22) can also be described as an attunement sequence (cf. 4.1.1.) in which the partners tune into the same communicative wavelength (in this case, the amused tone). The corpus contains many similar examples. Especially at the beginnings of doctor-patient encounters, doctors often use jokes or ironic utterances to metacommunicatively reframe the situation. This technique is a type of positive face-work for both doctor and patient. Example 23) below is taken from a post-operative examination of a patient who had undergone radiotherapy for cancer. The initial round of ritual politeness (the phatic opening, greetings, deferent allocution) is used by the doctor as an occasion for face-work. The doctor’s casual tone contributes to loosening the tension associated with the visit. 23)

P. permesso - buon giorno dottore D. buon giorno signora. come sta? P. bene grazie. D. nonostante le nostre cure continua a stare bene, (Rt, TR13, A43) P. may I - good morning doctor D. good morning madam. how are you? P. I’m well thank you. D. despite our treatment you’re still well,

There is a certain lack of control of politeness routines on the part of the patient in this sequence. Judging by her answer in the third turn, she seems to interpret the doctor’s question ‘how are you’ as a simple phatic preamble to something further, although the enquiry clearly has other implications (cf. Coupland et al., 1994). 6.6.1.1. Lenitive mitigation and deference. Example 24) illustrates a peculiar case of lenitive mitigation where what is modulated (the doctor’s social-institutional role) is a variable that is normally independent in doctor-patient interaction. 24)

D. volevo però avere anche un suo parere. […] adesso la cosa mi sembra molto più tranquilla - lei l’ha vista a dicembre e aveva già questi dolo:ri un pochino di edema eccetera e l’aveva tranquillizzata. ehm:: sarei più tranquillo se la vedesse anche lei però: sotto in chemioterapia. se adesso non ha tempo io sono sotto la signora aspetta, quando: quando ha tempo di passare di lì un attimo. (Rt, TR17, A19)

Grammar of mitigation in doctor-patient dialogue

237

D. I’d like your opinion. […] things now seem to have improved - you saw her in December when she was already experiencing some pain: and was slightly edematous and you told her there was nothing to be concerned about erm:: I would be more at ease if you saw her in oncology. if you can’t now I am here with her downstairs she’s waiting, when: when you have time to swing by a moment. This a request made by a doctor to his higher-status superior. It is motivated by an unexpected problem arising during an examination that leads the doctor to feel a need for a second opinion. He therefore calls his supervisor, the head physician. Given the unequal relation between the doctor and his superior, the exchange is characterized by a particular kind of asymmetry. Following Brown and Levinson’s (1987) theory of FTAs, we may say that such a request involves high values on the parameters of rank and weight of imposition. The act is mitigated by ritual politeness (e.g. the use of the imperfect of politeness ‘volevo’ and the addition of ‘when you have time’). However, it requires further mitigation, as it could conceivably trigger two unwelcome perlocutions: apprehension on the part of the patient, and inconvenience for the head physician who is being interrupted. These two possible perlocutions are not only unwelcome, but they also conflict: the patient is listening while the doctor talks to his superior. On the one hand, the doctor’s request could sound insufficiently motivated (wasting the superior’s time) if he were to mitigate it enough to avoid concern on the the patient’s part. On the other hand, the request could sound threatening to the patient if it were modulated emphatically enough to fully justify the doctor’s interruption of his superior. Moreover, the doctor could risk losing face if his superior discovered later that the patient’s symptoms did not justify the alarm. The doctor’s strategy is a successful compromise in the face of these two conflicting needs. The act has a ratified addressee, i.e. the superior, and an overhearer, i.e. the patient (cf. Goffman, 1979). The doctor takes both hearers into consideration and produces an interesting example of mitigation affecting both the illocution (the request, whose intensity and urgency are reduced in different ways) and the perlocution (the warning effect on the patient, for whom the request, besides obviously being unwelcome, could have tragic consequences). The request is the head act. There are, however, other subordinate illocutionary acts providing pieces of information that are relevant from a clinical point of view alone, but which are also – within the doctor’s argumentative strategy – motivations and grounders for/of the request. This example is also interesting from the point of view of the connections between mitigation, deference, and face-work. The doctor justifies his disruption of his superior’s activities by minimizing the urgency of his request while at the same time maximizing consideration for his superior’s negative face (cf. Leech, 1983; 2.1.4.2.). Moreover, he constructs his own positive face by acting as a conscientious, careful doctor who empathizes

238

Mitigation

with his patients and wishes to promote solidarity. He says sarei più tranquillo (‘I would be more at ease’) and reiterates the idea of being at ease (tranquilla, tranquillizzata, tranquillo) throughout his turn, thus leaking that he is not actually that calm. The state of being at ease must be shown more than declared. The polite imperfect is followed by a minimization of the severity of the patient’s present state as compared to her state in the past (‘things now seem to have improved’). This minimization, however, is followed by a piece of information that is in itself not very reassuring (‘you saw her in December when she was already experiencing some pain’). The doctor then gives his superior an opportunity not to comply with the request and even provides a possible reason for refusal (‘if you can’t now’). This is another means of reducing the urgency of the request. 6.6.1.2. Summary of linguistic means of lenitive mitigation. The partial typology sketched out so far gives us an initial idea of the broad range of linguistic devices that can be involved in lenitive mitigation.

Primary means of lenitive mitigation: un attimo, magari, un po’, un pochino, pure; suspensive intonation; diminutives, ethical dative, conditional, polite imperfect; indirect acts, preliminary questions (‘pre’, query preparatory procedure, cf. House and Kasper, 1981; Blum-Kulka et al., 1989), conventional indirectness, if-clauses (e.g. se vuoi), eventualization constructions (elliptical clauses, e.g. delle volte), negative forms (with interrogative function as non è che in 16); and, textual (either preceding or following the act): justifications, grounders, supportive moves (cf. Blum-Kulka et al., 1989), pre-moves. lexical: prosodic: morphological: syntactic:

Secondary means of lenitive mitigation: Vagueness of prescription:

Reduction of obligation:

This is achieved semantically by offering a number of options for the fulfillment of the requested act. This strategy is similar to the strategy of exemplification of equipollent possibilities in the case of assertives; e.g. ‘the only thing I’d like you to do’ (see example 20);

Grammar of mitigation in doctor-patient dialogue

Eventualization:

239

and, This is achieved by means of elliptical constructions that are similar to the protasis in an if-sentence. Such constructions do not take the fulfillment of the requested act for granted. Rather, they shift this fulfillment to the possible world of eventualities hoped for by the speaker (e.g. the phrase delle volte in example 21).

On the whole, in answer to question a1) at the beginning of Section 6.1., we can say that the linguistic means of lenitive mitigation are heterogeneous both from a grammatical point of view (they belong to different categories) and from a semantic-pragmatic point of view (they focus on different aspects of the speech act). As to question a3), I have drawn a distinction between primary and secondary attenuating devices based on their respective degrees of conventionality. In fact, we may speak of a continuum from primary, direct, passe-partout mitigating devices like un attimo, un secondo, un po’, un pochino (which can also be used with non-directives) to secondary mitigating devices that are either conventionally (e.g. ‘can/could you?’) or non-conventionally (e.g. so-called ‘hints’; cf. Blum-Kulka et al., 1989) indirect. As I have already noted, the highly conventionalized marker un attimo can affect different interactional parameters in different speech act types and contexts. In connection with directives in medical examinations, it is certainly true that un attimo works as a mitigating device reducing possible face-threats. However, in this institutional activity type, there are also situations in which this marker is, so to say, ‘resemantized’ and regains its original full meaning as may specifically happen in utterances about the expected length of the doctor’s examination, which is literally intrusive, conducted as it is on the body of the interlocutor.

Combinations of means in lenitive mitigation: With respect to question a2) at the beginning of Section 6.1., we have noticed frequent combinations of formally heterogeneous means of lenitive mitigation throughout the preceding pages (see examples 7, 10, 12, 13, 14, 18). Certain lexical and syntactic devices have been shown to have mitigating effects independently of other features of the utterance. Other devices, however, like suspensive intonation, typically appear only together with devices of other types. Ultimately, in fact, apart from examples 5)-7) and 9) (where mitigation is a product exclusively of lexical, syntactic, or prosodic choices), the examples discussed thus far show that mitigation is most often a result of combinations of heterogeneous devices: lexical, prosodic, syntactic, morphological, textual, and so forth. In the following section I will try to illustrate how combinations of different types of mitigating devices in a single speech act can

240

Mitigation

affect different pragmatic and interactional dimensions. As we have seen, example 24) was complicated by a number of communicative and extracommunicative factors, including the presence of two hearers, the higher status of the ratified hearer, the overhearer’s fear of bad news, etc. Here, the doctor’s mitigation was a complexly articulated strategy involving additional sub-strategies like giving his superior an excuse in advance for refusing, and so forth. In example 16) we also saw a similar clustering of mitigating strategies in a request made by a lower-status speaker (in this case, a patient). 6.6.1.3. Strategies of lenitive mitigation. On the basis of the discussion thus far, I would like to draw some first general conclusions about mitigating devices in lenitive mitigation, i.e. mitigation on directive-exercitive illocutions. This type of mitigation furthers the attainment of perlocutionary objectives, acting on different parameters of co-textually and contextually situated speech acts. The main lenitive mitigating strategies described so far can be summed up as follows: o Strategy a) reduces the weight of imposition. This type of internal mitigation corresponds to bushes (cf. Chapter 3) affecting either predication or reference, as in examples 5), 6), 7), and 8). reduces the intensity of the IFID, thus making a request less imperative. o Strategy b) This strategy corresponds to what I have called hedges, which are realized by different means: for example, by the replacement of the indicative mood by the conditional, as in ‘I’d propose’ in example 15). reduces the coerciveness of a requested act and increases speaker-hearer o Strategy c) emotional involvement by signaling empathy and solidarity, as in example 11) (cf., among others, Blum-Kulka, 1990; Blum-Kulka, 1992; Scollon and Scollon, 1995). Strategies a), b), and c) are all realized primarily by devices related to what Blum-Kulka et al. (1989) call internal mitigation. motivates a requested act by giving preliminary justifications or o Strategy d) grounders for it, as in ‘you seem a bit pale to me’ in example 25). In providing justification for a directive, the speaker appeals to the hearer as a rational being who acts only after understanding the reasons for her/his actions (cf. Blum-Kulka, 1992). This is by far the most widely used strategy of conventional indirectness (see examples 12, 13, 19 and 21), and it is found in requests in many languages. (cf., for instance, House and Kasper, 1981; Blum-Kulka et al., 1989; Færch and Kasper, 1989). The operations realizing strategy d) are all mainly related to what Blum-Kulka et al. (1989) call external mitigation. combines the above strategies of internal and external mitigation and is o Strategy e) the most frequent strategy found in the corpus (see examples 9, 12, 18 and 19). Combinatory strategies frequently occur together with other strategies that reduce the illocutionary intensity of a request such as the ‘non assumption of compliance’ (cf. Blum-Kulka and House, 1989:

Grammar of mitigation in doctor-patient dialogue

241

138) and the ‘advance provision of an excuse’ for a possible refusal to comply with the requested act (see example 24). uses the techniques of secondary mitigation. Here, mitigation is not o Strategy f) obtained by linguistic additions or substitutions to the utterance. Rather, it results from an implicature rooted in the semantics of the speech act or from metacommunicative operations performed by the speaker on the speech act. This strategy includes: giving alternatives (see example 18), eventualization (see example 21), fictionalization (see example 22), and so forth. The mitigating operations involved in lenitive strategies above are closely connected to strategies of positive and negative politeness. This, however, does not explain all of their functions in, or effects on, different dimensions of interaction in doctor-patient encounters. Clearly, utterers’ and interlocutors’ projected images change under the coloring influences of different types of mitigation. The interlocutor may be discursively constructed as a rational being who needs to be persuaded, or as a person with pressing obligations who should not be bothered, or as an emotional person who needs to be ‘seduced’ into becoming involved with the speaker, and so forth. We may presume that when speakers use different strategies simultaneously (as in strategy e) above), these will create synergetic reinforcements of mitigation. The effects of mitigating strategies add up, strengthening their ultimate combined influences and triggering additional mitigating effects at the metacommunicative level that define relationships and are instrumental in shaping images of the speaker and the listener. The cumulative use of downgraders, for example, iconically reflects both the quantity and quality of considerateness shown by the speaker for the listener (cf. Leech, 1983). Moreover, in choosing different mitigating strategies, the speaker also gives the hearer different paradigms of options for responding and redefining the relationship. In fact, combinatory lenitive mitigation may be regarded as a metacommunicative version of Robin Lakoff’s (1973) maxim ‘give alternatives’. Finally, in view of the pervasive rhetorical and stylistic ambivalence of communication, we must note the frequent oscillations between reinforcement and mitigation in single turns of spoken language. In example 25): 25)

D. domani digiuna per esami di routine. stia digiuna domattina le facciamo i controlli perché la vedo un po’ pallidina: quindi è meglio che stia, (WR, TR11, A13) D. tomorrow on an empty stomach for blood sampling. go on an empty stomach tomorrow morning we’re going to check you as you seem a bit pale+DIM: to me so it’s better you go on,

we have a reinforcement of the initial directive by way of an elliptical repetition stylistically reminiscent of baby-talk. In addition, the directive is externally mitigated by the grounder

242

Mitigation

‘we’re going to check you’. The hearer-excluding first-person plural pronoun is followed by another grounder that is mitigated by ‘a bit’ and the diminutive. The end of the turn seems to contradict the unequal definition of the relation implicit so far. The grounder ‘so it’s better’, mitigates the directive ‘be on an empty stomach’ by appealing to the recipient as a rational being (cf. Blum-Kulka, 1992). This grounder is also a reformulation of what already was stated. Its argumentative effect is to strengthen the preceding grounder ‘as you seem a bit pale+DIM to me’. So far, we have looked at some examples of lenitive mitigation of directives and exercitives in medical examinations. We will now move on to consider some examples of tempering mitigation in assertives and verdictives. 6.6.2. Linguistic means of tempering mitigation Tempering mitigation mainly affects statements (assertives) and verdicts (verdictives) about present, accomplished states of affairs. In Searle’s (1969) terms, the direction of fit here is from words to the world. There is a long tradition of philosophical discussions of the close connection between assertions and judgments which I am not going to dwell on here. Rather, I wish to highlight the operative value of statements uttered by doctors in reporting their diagnoses to patients. In this situation, in fact, assertions often tend to blur into verdicts, and what look like simple remarks about states of affairs can often imply delicate clinical assessments with severe consequences – not just at the discourse level. Doctors’ statements and judgments under such circumstances are often results of shifts from the mode of truth to the mode of causation and manipulation (cf. Givón, 1989: 130). On the whole, tempering mitigation either reduces the speaker’s epistemic commitment to the truth of a proposition or lessens the categoricalness of a verdict. In the medical context, this reduces both the doctor’s obligation to claim to believe something and her/his obligation to persuade the patient to believe the same thing. By these means, tempering mitigation also helps reduce potential face-threats. a) 26)

lexical means (see A22, A23, A24, A25, A27, A32) D. probabilmente è:, - dove c’è l’attaccapanni - probabilmente è una:: conseguenza di un problema intestinale: che è cominciato con l’influenza eh? (Rt, TR14, A22) D. probably it is - where the clothes-stand is - it is probably a consequence of an intestinal problem that began with the flu huh?

Grammar of mitigation in doctor-patient dialogue

243

In example 26) probabilmente (‘probably’), a content disjunct expressing doubt (cf. Quirk et al., 1985: 620), occurs twice. The attenuating modulation reduces the doctor’s epistemic commitment to the truth of the propositional content. There is a reduction of the speaker’s commitment to the phrastic element. The scope of the mitigating operation here is restricted to the speaker’s commitment to the assertive illocution. Probabilmente weakens the doctor’s implied certainty. The overall effect of this is to downgrade the doctor’s assertive-verdictive diagnosis to a hypothesis or a mere attempt to retrace a temporal causal sequence of events. Epistemic commitment can also be reduced by means of parenthetical verbs (cf. Urmson, 1952; Venier, 1991; Schneider, forthcoming), as is the case of mi sembra (‘it seems to me’) in example 27): 27)

D. non c’è ancora niente mi sembra come inizio di travaglio. (WR, TR9, A23) D. it seems to me there’re still no signs of labor. (WR, TR9)

Lexical tempering mitigation can operate either on the relation between utterer and proposition (the neustic element of the utterance) or directly on the proposition itself (the utterance’s phrastic element) (cf. Hare, 1970). 28)

D. di caffè ne fa uso? P. sì. diciamo:, tre quattro al giorno. (SpV, TR7, A24) D. do you drink any coffee? P. yes. let’s say:, three or four a day.

In example 28), the doctor is collecting preliminary information before starting an examination. The patient, in her answer, reduces the precision of the information she provides by inserting an approximating bush, the marker diciamo (‘let’s say’), which she utters with a suspensive intonation. This device weakens her commitment to the propositional content (‘three or four’) by reformulating the simple affirmative answer at the beginning of the turn (cf. Hölker, 2003). The patient seems somewhat hyper-cooperative. Finally, diciamo also functions as a filler for a pause while the patient mentally calculates how much coffee she drinks every day. A restrictive modification of the validity of an entire assertive act (as opposed only to the proposition) can be achieved through adverbs expressing points of view. 13 13

Adverbs like ‘clinically’ can also be described as content disjuncts. These “present a comment on the truth value of what is said, expressing the extent to which, and the conditions under which, the speaker believes that what he is saying is true” (Quirk et al., 1985: 620). This class of adverbs is part of Fraser’s

244

29)

Mitigation

Hp. è ancora molto arrossata oppure no? D. no. infatti così clinicamente mi sembra molto più: tranquilla. (Rt. TR17, A27) Hp. is it still very red or not? D. no. in fact so to say clinically it seems to me things are much better. ((lit. seems to me much more: calm))

In example 29), for instance, in answering the head physician’s yes-no question, the doctor mitigates the strength of his own expressed opinion. This is achieved by means of the adverb clinicamente (‘clinically’), which limits the validity of the statement, as well as by the marker così (‘so to say’) and the impersonal construction mi sembra (‘seems to me’). 30)

D. be’ --- ((controlla i referti)) ma, direi che va abbastanza bene eh? (PC, TR5, A32) D. well --- ((checking medical reports)) well, I would say you’re doing quite well huh?

In example 30), the marker be’ (‘well’) implies that the utterance is a result of an assessment, and the lexicalized morphological device direi (‘I would say’, the conditional of the verbum dicendi ‘dire’, ‘say’) is used as a verbal predicate governing the sentential object. Both devices reduce the categoricalness of the verdictive. The turn ends with the lexical interjection eh?, uttered with rising intonation, which can be regarded as an agreement-seeking marker. b)

morphological means (see A25)

The epistemic future, i.e. the future tense used with a modal epistemic function, together with modal adverbs and parenthetical verbs, is a morphological device employed to reduce the certainty of a proposition. In 31): 31)

P. +ecco* e niente m’ha detto che: sarà stato quella digestione che avevo fatto. (PsV, TR18, A25)

(1980) list of mitigating devices, which Fraser considers to be similar to Lakoff’s (1972) hedges (cf. 2.1.3.1.). His example is the following: “Technically, your home is a multiple family dwelling” (Fraser, 1980: 349). Here the adverb ‘technically’ is a mitigating device, as its function, according to Fraser, is to “move your displeasure from me, the conveyor of the information, to those who drew up the technical criteria” (ibid.).

Grammar of mitigation in doctor-patient dialogue

245

P. +well* you know ((lit. nothing)) he said that: there was probably ((lit. it will have been)) something wrong with digestion. ((lit. that digestion I had made)) the epistemic (compound) future downgrades the diagnosis reported by the patient to a hypothesis. c) 32)

syntactic means (see A28, A34) P. il braccio:, è un pochino:, è normale che sia un pochino gonfio, […] D. non è una cosa:: che non vada. (Rt, TR13, A28) P. the arm is a bit:, it’s normal for it to be a bit swollen, […] D. there’s nothing wrong with it. ((lit. it’s not a thing:: that not go+SUBJ))

In example 32), tempering mitigation is achieved through the double negative, nearly a litotes, with a restrictive relative clause structuring the syntagmatic component of the verdictive (una cosa che non vada, ‘a thing that not go+SUBJ’). The attenuating effect is enhanced by the subjunctive mood, which is used by the doctor to remove possible reasons for concern on the patient’s part. The double negative rules out the possibility of a serious warning. At the same time, by using it, the doctor avoids pronouncing a clearly positive assessment. Example 33) illustrates the difference between mitigation as a metalinguistic category (MitNN) and the everyday meaning of the term (MitN). 33)

D. abbiamo ricevuto l’esame istologico ieri. - come le avevo detto la biopsia è negativa. non ci sono tumori, ovviamente non ci sono:= P. =non c’è niente. D. non è che non c’è niente - non ci sono cose brutte nel senso che non c’è tumore polipi cose strane. (SpV, TR8, A34) D. we received the histology report yesterday. - like I had said the biopsy is negative. there are no tumors, there are definitely none:= P. =there’s nothing. D. it’s not that there’s nothing - there are no bad things in the sense that there are no tumors polyps strange things.

Here, the patient’s mitigating expression non c’è niente (‘there’s nothing’) is used by the doctor to reintroduce a possible reason for concern. The split negation construction non è che

246

Mitigation

(‘it’s not that’) enables the doctor to correct the patient’s hasty and perhaps over-optimistic conclusion by repeating it verbatim. According to Bernini (1992), the major [contrastive] function of the split negation construction allows its use as an attenuating device, as evidenced in the use of the subjunctive mood. Attenuation results from the foregrounding of negation, which has as its scope the whole base sentence from which it is extracted. The base sentence is backgrounded. This focalization strategy implies the validity of a different utterance from the one denied, although the former is left unexpressed. (Bernini, 1992: 204; my translation, C.C.)

The utterance contrasting the one denied in example 33) is actually made explicit. This is the doctor’s verdict non ci sono cose brutte (‘there are no bad things’), which, after the selfcorrecting reformulating marker nel senso che (‘in the sense that’), is further specified by a list of possible pathologies both specific (‘tumors polyps’) and generic (‘strange things’) that have been excluded. Despite its attenuating function, the verdictive’s cleft negative structure leaves room for a subsequent reference (not in this excerpt) to the fact that, after all, there was ‘something’, although not a ‘bad thing’. d) 34)

lexical and morphological means (see A26) D. ho capito. allora. quindi ehm qualche volta la dottoressa verrà a chiedere delle cose a suo marito penso. (SpV, TR7, A26) D. I see. so. then erm from time to time the doctor+FEM will come to ask your husband some questions I think.

Example 34) contains an expositive meta-discoursive illocution used to check understanding. The parenthetical verb penso (‘I think’) in turn-final position reinforces the attenuating mitigating effect of the preceding epistemic future. The result is a ‘weighed supposition’, which is anticipated by the understanding marker ho capito (‘I see’) and the starter allora (‘so’) at the beginning of the utterance. e)

lexical and intonational means (see A37)

Example 35) is another instance where MitN is combined with MitNN. Here, the mitigation of the the patient’s (extralinguistic) concern goes hand in hand with the metalinguistic mitigation of the doctor’s (linguistic) verdictive act. The exchange occurs at the end of an examination of a patient who has undergone an operation for breast cancer and has therefore reasons to be

Grammar of mitigation in doctor-patient dialogue

247

worried. The doctor, after inviting her to undergo further exams, says: 35)

D. eh:::: cosa vuole. sono addensamenti mammari ((tono di rassicurazione )) (VS, TR7, A37) D. eh:::: you know ((lit. what do you want)). it’s thicker breast tissue ((reassuring tone))

Here, the initial interjection eh is followed by a consultative device cosa vuole (literally ‘what do you want’, which can be translated by the English marker ‘you know’), an expression frequently used in informal spoken language. Both devices urge the patient to accept the reassuring assessment in the head act that follows, sono addensamenti mammari (‘it’s thicker breast tissue’), while at the same time intonationally suggesting that there is nothing to worry about. This exchange is complex from the point of view of both its content and the relation between the interlocutors. The information transmitted is twofold: on the one hand, we have a diagnosis; on the other, we have an assurance that there is nothing particularly serious. The reassuring effect of the utterance is achieved mainly through a specific prosodic contour. More precisely, the exclamation ‘eh’ at the beginning is uttered with a long drawl, at a higher pitch, and in a louder voice than the rest of the sequence, and with a falling intonation. f) 36)

lexical and syntactic means (see A30, A31, A33) D. be’ troppi dolori non è che sian troppo normali. (Rt, TR16, A30) D. well that much pain is not usually that normal.

Example 36) starts with the turn-taking marker be’ (‘well’) and a dislocation of the thematic element troppi dolori (‘that much pain’). The verdictive is mitigated syntactically by the focalizing construction non è che (cf. above) and lexically by the adjective troppi (‘that much’), which is then reiterated to weaken the categoricalness of the doctor’s assessment. 37)

D. può anche darsi che ci sia un piccolo problema di ritorno venoso. cioè magari più la vena che l’arteria che fa fatica a portare il sangue indietro. (PC, TR2, A31) D. it may be a small problem of lack of venous return. in other words maybe it’s more likely to be the vein than the artery that’s making it difficult for the blood to circulate.

248

Mitigation

In example 37), mitigation is realized by syntactical and lexical means. As to the former, può anche darsi (‘it may be’) + subjunctive mood is an impersonal construction expressing possibility. This construction is reinforced by the word anche (‘even’), which implies that the diagnosis is one possible option among a wide range of hypotheses. The result is a type of epistemic attenuating modulation of the utterance’s propositional content. The adverb magari (‘maybe’) also indicates possibility (cf. Manzotti, 1995: 107 ff.) and precedes the reformulation already introduced by cioè (‘in other words’). Moreover, the adjective piccolo (‘small’) affects the propositional content by reducing the severity of the problem. 38)

D. magari è un periodo così - va a sapere - qualcosa del genere. (PC, TR3, A33) D. maybe it’s a sort of bad moment - who knows - something like that.

In 38), both magari (‘maybe’) and the idiomatic phrase va a sapere (‘who knows’) lexically mitigate the neustic component of the illocution (the doctor’s commitment to the truth of the proposition). È un periodo così (‘it’s a sort of bad moment’) and qualcosa del genere (‘something like that’) are approximating bushes that make the proposition fuzzy, thus turning the illocution from a verdictive into a behabitive, or a mere description of an internal state (cf. Chapter 3). g) 39)

morphological and syntactic means (see A29) D. ma quello è un problemino. - non è mica un problema grosso. (MB, TR2, A29) D. but that’s a problem+DIM. - it’s not a big problem.

In example 39), the mitigating effect is achieved by a combination of morphological and syntactic devices. The main morphological mitigating device is the diminutive suffix. The pronoun quello (‘that’) can be seen here as an example of empathic deixis characterized by the trait [-PROXIMITY] (cf. Conte, 1999: 75), making it paradigmatically opposed to questo (‘this’). Questo would be the expected choice in this context, since the problem referred to has just been mentioned by the patient in the preceding turn. Coming unexpectedly, quello conveys non-immediacy (cf. Wiener and Mehrabian, 1968; 4.5.). In the second part of the turn the doctor employs the syntactic device litotes to reformulate the propositional content of the first part of the turn by means of a negative opposite (negatio contrarii). In this uttterance, mitigating devices thus minimize the severity of the problem.

Grammar of mitigation in doctor-patient dialogue

h)

249

cumulative forms of tempering mitigation (see A35, A36, A39)

As we have already seen, the corpus includes many instances of cumulative uses of lenitive mitigating devices. The cumulative use of downgrading devices occurs in connection with tempering mitigation as well, although to a lesser extent. 40)

D. a me dava l’impressione che l’altra volta fosse più rossa. sbaglio oh:? - sempre stata così? P. dottore abbia pazienza ma non ci credo. io vedo che è scuro che è molto caldo è dolente. (Rt, TR17, A35) D. it seemed to me that the last time it was redder. am I wrong or:? - has it always been like that? P. doctor I’m sorry ((lit. be patient)) but I don’t believe that. what I see is that it’s dark that it’s very warm and it hurts.

Example 40) contains lexical, phrasal, syntactic, and intonational attenuating devices. The diagnosis is downgraded to a subjective opinion by the predicate dare l’impressione (‘seem’). The consultative marker sbaglio oh:? (‘am I wrong or:?’) at the end of the turn, with its interrogative structure and suspensive intonation, makes it easier for the patient to correct the doctor’s statement. The function of the question sempre stata così? (‘has it always been like that?’) is to check the persistence of a symptom; at the same time, it increases the negotiability of the doctor’s assertion. In fact, it starts a conflictual sequence (non ci credo, ‘I don’t believe that’) introduced by the deferential address term dottore (‘doctor’) and the disarmer abbia pazienza (‘be patient’) (cf. Edmondson, 1981: 127 ff.). Here, the patient’s categorical io vedo (‘what I see’) is clearly opposed to the doctor’s cautious observation a me dava l’impressione (‘it seemed to me’). 41)

D. niente mh sì - allora se ho capito bene - il suo problema è che ogni tanto le capita di svenire. P. °sì°. (PsV, TR18, A36) D. well ((lit. nothing)) erm yeah - now if I’ve understood correctly - your problem is that you sometimes happen to faint. ((lit. it happens to you to faint)) P. °yeah°.

In example 41), lexical devices of different kinds (markers, adverbs, predicates, etc.) cluster into a combined form of internal and external mitigation. The turn opens with four starters

250

Mitigation

indicating hesitation (niente mh sì allora, ‘well erm yeah now’), followed by the parenthetical clause se ho capito bene (‘if I’ve understood correctly’). 14 This hedge is given emphasis by the two pauses immediately before and after it, which further contribute to reducing the utterance’s claim to truth. The adverb of time ogni tanto (‘sometimes’) is a bush that reduces the frequency of the symptom, thus also reducing the severity of the patient’s problem. Finally, through the choice of the predicate le capita (‘you happen’), the doctor implies that the symptom is beyond the patient’s control. 42)

M. poi oltre a tutto lui lavora al xxx [nome di ospedale] di xxx [nome di luogo] ci fosse da fare non so paradossalmente da operare, […] non non è +non è* esclusa la cosa. (PC, TR1, A39) D. what’s more he works at xxx [name of hospital] in xxx [place name] if they had I don’t know paradoxically to operate, […] not it’s not +it’s not to be* excluded.

Excerpt 42) is an example (which has been already discussed in 3.3.4.) of the cumulative use of lexical and syntactic mitigating devices. Here, the doctor’s prognosis that the patient may need an operation is downgraded to a mere hypothesis. The marker non so (‘I don’t know’) functions as an exemplification marker (‘to operate’), while the adverb paradossalmente (‘paradoxically’) functions as a metacommunicative comment signaling an assessment. Oltre a tutto (‘what’s more’) introduces the subject assigning it a low degree of topical relevance: this is an example of a textual shield of lateralization (cf. 3.4.), i.e. a textual mechanism by which a topic is made a side-topic. In the same connective another mitigating device is embedded, namely the if-sentence in the subjunctive mood without apodosis. These last examples permit a tentative generalization: in doctor-patient interaction in Italian, cumulative downgrading occurs much more often in connection with lenitive mitigation (on directives) than in connection with tempering mitigation (on assertions). The fact that the cumulative use of mitigators seems to be dispreferred for the latter may be explained by the risk, inherent in this use, of resulting in what Haley (1959) calls ‘disqualification’, and Beavin Bavelas et al. (1990) call ‘equivocation’ (cf. 4.6.). This risk of producing, if not an open rebuttal or protest, at least disorientation and uneasiness, is particularly high in a context where what the patient-hearer needs is some kind of (possibly reassuring) certainty. Clearly, this hypothesis remains to be validated by further evidence. However, it seems reasonable to assume that in clinical contexts speakers try to avoid conflicts and to prevent their hearers from becoming confused by too complicated answers they are not looking for. In

14

This is a hedge in my model. Fraser (1980) would call it a ‘disclaimer’; Thomas (1989) calls it a ‘gist’.

Grammar of mitigation in doctor-patient dialogue

251

this respect, we might recall the example from Måseide (1981: 152) quoted earlier where a patient, after a complicated and obscure answer by the doctor, replies: “If you think I have a cancer, you should let me know”. According to Berger and Bradac (1982), communication is governed by the basic need to avoid vagueness and uncertainty. Adelswärd and Linell (1994), on the other hand, show various ways in which vagueness can in fact be used an interactional resource (cf. also Chapter 2, footnote 7). In the context of a medical examination, however, the patient has a right to know exactly what s/he is suffering from and what to do to treat it. As to the latter point, the doctor’s use of different forms of mitigation in telling the patient ‘what to do’ tends to increase the effectiveness of her/his directives. Also, the cumulative use of downgrading devices in lenitive mitigation can help shape different relational co-identities and allow the patient to choose among different definitions of the doctor-patient relation. On the other hand, as shown by earlier examples, if the doctor’s explanations of ‘what the patient is suffering from’ are too convoluted by cumulative uses of mitigating devices, this excess of tempering mitigation can result in a level of uncertainty that the patient is understandably not willing to tolerate. In the delicate institutional interaction between doctor and patient it is extremely difficult to distinguish clearly between cautious self- and other-protection on the one hand, and effects generated by overuse of mitigation on the other (e.g. self-invalidation, the impression of reticence, etc.). 6.6.2.1. Prepositional phrases in tempering mitigation. An assertive-verdictive act can be mitigated by reducing the scope of the predication’s validity. This can be done by means of a modifying expression, e.g. the adjunct nel seno (lit.‘in the breast’, meaning ‘as far as the breast is concerned’) in example 43: 43)

M. nel seno va bene. l’unica cosa che mi fa per la prossima volta è un’ecografia al fegato. (Rt, TR16, A38) D. in the breast it’s fine. the only thing I’d like you to do for me ((lit. you do for me)) on your next visit is to have an ultrasound of your liver.

This example is particularly interesting in that it consists of a statement-verdict and a directive. The former can be said to be an external mitigator (grounder) of the latter. Both illocutions are marked by a similar mitigating strategy reducing the validity of the act. In the assertive, the prepositional phrase nel seno (‘in the breast’) reduces the validity of the positive verdict, while in the directive, the construction l’unica cosa che mi fa (‘the only thing I’d like you to do for me’) weakens the obligation imposed on the patient by the doctor. The addition of a prepositional phrase can also attenuate the truth claims of assertives and

252

Mitigation

verdictives. For instance, parenthetical phrases with limiting functions like secondo me, a mio parere, a mio giudizio, etc. (‘in my opinion’) function as cautious premises making the statements that follow them subjective and thus undermining their authority (cf. Bazzanella et al., 1991: 68). 15 In a systemic-functional grammar, phrases of this kind are defined as ‘circumstantial angles’ (cf. Thibault, 1999: 577-578). They are used so widely in many types of Italian interaction that they become annoyingly redundant (cf. Carli, 1999). These restrictive structures are relevant to the issue I am dealing with in this work: let us dwell a bit on the reasons of this relevance. The addition of restrictive prepositional or adverbial phrases of this kind in tempering mitigation confirms once again the paradoxical nature of mitigation: on the one hand, it enables a speaker to reduce truth claims to personal opinions thereby deleting the potential extension of the truth claim and its absolutization. On the other hand, this reduction is achieved by foregrounding the speaker’s responsibility for what s/he is saying. Paradoxically, phrases like a mio parere (‘in my opinion’), while reducing the validity of a statement or verdict, also underscore the speaker’s endorsement of her/his utterance. While the validity of the assertion is circumscribed, the role of the speaker as a ratified utterer is highlighted, often contrastively, with respect to others’ opinions. For instance, in 40) the speaker claims responsibility for her/his utterance by using the dative a me (‘to me’) contrastively, again meaning ‘in my opinion’, as opposed to a real or hypothetical ‘in someone else’s opinion’ or ‘according to x’. Clearly, the pragmatic effect of the use of such phrases must be considered in conjunction with the specific propositional content, co-text, and context of the utterance in which it occurs. The general point I would like to make here, however, is that such restrictive prepositional phrases are characterized by an underlying ambivalence: they tend simultaneously to both mitigate and reinforce. This feature can be exploited in unequal encounters like doctor-patient interaction to achieve different interactional goals. As an introduction to a medical opinion, a phrase like a me or secondo me has more than a phatic function. Indeed, in using such a phrase, the doctor both represents her/himself as a qualified expert and represents her/his opinion as one of the possible options available. In this way, s/he leaves room for negotiation in an institutional routine where the assessment is the first step of the decision-making process regardless of the patient’s reaction. From both an instrumental point of view (the restriction of the utterance’s validity) and a relational point of view (the implicit reduction of the doctor’s self-attributed power), such restrictive phrases are not just ambiguous, but also potentially antiphrastic. Relationally, they can be interpreted as indices of a subtle renegotiation of power – as if the doctor, whose knowledge and power are unquestioned in a clinical context, wishes to mitigate her/his image

15

Secondo me is an example of prepositional phrase starting with a polysyllabic preposition which controls the noun phrase directly (cf. Rizzi, 1988: 507-531).

Grammar of mitigation in doctor-patient dialogue

253

as an all-knowing expert in this situation. Thus, restrictive prepositional phrases can be part of strategies in which negotiation is simulated. In particular, they can meet specific selfpresentation needs that can ease the decision-making process by preventing the patient from feeling overwhelmed by the doctor’s over-assertiveness. Despite this, restrictive prepositional phrases may also be exactly what they appear to be: i.e. simple relativizations of judgments implying that the doctor may want to appeal to other experts (colleagues, specialists, etc.), or even to the recipient, before making a final decision. Example 44) below is taken from the crucial part of a clinical examination where the doctor presents his diagnosis and gives his reasons for recommending surgery. In 44): 44)

D. a mio giudizio: merita operarla perché i rischi operatori i rischi anestesiologici son minori dei benefici che avrebbe dall’intervento stesso - quindi: - +decida lei* P. +niente da fare* D. niente da fare? ma sta così - (SpV, TR9, A40) D. in my opinion: it is worth operating because the risks involved in the surgery and the anesthesia are minor compared to the benefits you would get from the operation itself so: +it’s on you to decide* ((lit. you decide)) P. +there’s no way* D. there’s no way? but you are like that -

the opening a mio giudizio (‘in my opinion’) modulates the main illocution, the head act, in a subjective direction. On the other hand, the head act itself, merita operarla (‘it is worth operating’), is a suggestion (i.e. an exercitive) presented as an objective assessment (i.e. a verdictive), and is followed by a number of grounders. From a Searlean perspective, we could say that the doctor performs an exercitive act (the suggestion) indirectly, by stating that the preparatory condition for the suggested action holds. The fulfillment of this preparatory condition is expressed by the doctor’s statement that surgery will be beneficial to the patient. Here, the phrase a mio giudizio can be considered as having either mitigating or reinforcing functions depending on the scope we assign to it. If we assume that the phrase focuses on the verdictive, the modulation obtained is one of mitigation: i.e. the phrase implies that the doctor’s opinion is subjective. On the other hand, If we assume that the phrase focuses on the non-literal exercitive act, the modulation obtained is one of reinforcement: i.e. the phrase implies that this is a suggestion of an expert who knows what is best for his patient. At the end of the turn, the doctor – whether in good or bad faith – ascribes the final responsibility for making the decision to the patient, uttering decida lei (‘you decide’). Unexpectedly, the latter seizes this opportunity, overlapping with the doctor’s turn, to

254

Mitigation

retroactively respond to the non-literal exercitive force of the suggestion rather than to its the literal verdictive force. In a word, she attempts to resist the doctor’s suggestion, thereby causing the latter’s astonishment. After an exclamation of disbelief, 16 the doctor reaffirms the need for the operation in a somewhat polemical tone and without further attenuation. The disagreement (cf. Pomerantz, 1984) in this case, we could say, is a product of misunderstanding. The patient has interpreted the doctor’s utterance as an exercitive act (suggestion) that she is free not to follow, while the doctor has understood it as a verdictive act (assessment) that she cannot confute. In terms of Kamio’s (1994; 1995) theory of the territory of information, the verdict is in the doctor’s territory, while the suggestion is in the patient’s. Hence, ironically, in this situation, the interlocutors are only exercising what they regard as their respective ‘territorial interpretive rights’. This example shows that mitigation can be a loaded weapon. The problem here is that the doctor has only simulated a negotiable situation by representing the objective necessity of the operation as a personal opinion and leaving it to the patient to make a final decision. This strategy fails in the exchange discussed here. The patient takes the opportunity offered by the doctor’s strategic attenuation of his suggestion to renegotiate their mutual knowledge, powers, and the respective duties at stake. The doctor’s pre-emptive, non-deferential answer reveals that he has failed to reach his intended purpose (to ‘sugar the pill’ and make the patient agree to the operation while showing respect for her and complying with the norms of informed consent). Moreover, his ill-chosen mitigation strategy even causes antagonism. In Strawson’s (1964) terms, we could say that the patient’s ‘acknowledgement’ of the doctor’s intention to mitigate his suggestion/verdict does not contribute to the attainment of the complex primary response intended by the doctor. On the contrary, it seems to hamper its attainment. 6.6.2.2. Summary of linguistic means of tempering mitigation. The linguistic means of tempering mitigation discussed so far can be summed up as follows: primary means of tempering mitigation: lexical: parenthetical verbs affecting the neustic component of the utterance; approximating devices affecting the phrastic component of the utterance (e.g. diciamo, magari); devices indicating vagueness or uncertainty (i.e. tempering particles); content disjuncts (e.g. clinicamente); interjections and intonation (e.g. eh:::: see ex. 35);

16

Exclamations indicating disbelief are addressed in Manzotti and Rigamonti (1991: 291).

Grammar of mitigation in doctor-patient dialogue

255

syntactic: negative; negative opposite (negatio contrarii), litotes, 17 può darsi + subjunctive mood (see ex. 37); intonational: ‘reassuring’ tone (see ex. 35); morphological: diminutives (see ex. 39); epistemic future (see ex. 31); conditional mood (see ex. 30); limiting adjuncts realized by prepositional phrases (e.g. nel seno, see ex. 43; a mio giudizio, see ex. 44); phrasal: consultative devices (cf. Blum-Kulka et al., 1989) or disarmers (cf. Edmondson, 1981) (e.g. se ho capito bene, see ex. 41; sbaglio oh:?, see ex. 40); idiomatic clauses (e.g. va a sapere, see ex. 38; cosa vuole, see ex. 35); textual: clarification introduced by reformulating expressions (e.g. nel senso che, see ex. 33); topical lateralization introduced by textual shields (e.g. oltre a tutto, see ex. 42); secondary (semantic) means of tempering mitigation: reduction of predication’s categoricalness by means of a verbum putandi that weakens the assertion (e.g. dare l’impressione, see ex. 40); semantics of proposition: e.g. un piccolo problema (see ex. 37), ogni tanto (see ex. 41); reference vagueness: e.g. qualcosa del genere (see ex. 38).

6.7. MITIGATION AND FELICITY CONDITIONS (CONSTITUTIVE RULES) In this section I will focus on possible connections between mitigation and felicity conditions. This idea was originally advanced by Robin Lakoff (1980), although within a different theoretical framework and with a different purpose in mind than mine here. I would like to suggest that the formal classification of mitigating devices may be profitably reconsidered from the point of view of the felicity conditions (Austin) or constitutive rules (Searle) affected by the mitigating operation. This makes it possible to build new typologies while at the same time providing answers to the questions formulated at the outset in Section 6.1. Ultimately, two objectives have to be reached. One consists in proving the usefulness and validity of the theoretical model proposed here for the systematization of empirical data. The other consists in clarifying the functional analogy between lenitive and tempering mitigation and pointing out their common connections to the fulfillment conditions of speech acts. As we 17

As put forward in Caffi (1990), different instances of litotes can be placed along a scale of growing figural identity ranging from: 1) negative periphrasis (e.g. non è a buon mercato, ‘it’s not cheap’), through 2) negation of a hyperbole (e.g. non costa due soldi, lit. ‘it doesn’t cost two pence’) to 3) double negative (negatio contrarii) (e.g. non ha un prezzo indifferente, lit. ‘it doesn’t have an insignificant price’).

256

Mitigation

will see in the following sections, both lenitive and tempering mitigation can attenuate compliance with the felicity conditions/constitutive rules of speech acts. 6.7.1. Attenuation of compliance with essential rules According to Searle (1969: 66), the essential rule for directives is that the act “counts as an attempt to get H [the hearer] to do A [the action]”. The constitutive rule for assertives is that the act “counts as an undertaking to the effect that p represents an actual state of affairs” (ibid.). In both of these macro-classes of illocutionary acts mitigation – whether internal or external – affects the fulfillment of essential conditions. In the case of directives, mitigation reduces the forcefulness of the attempt to make the recipient do something. In the case of verdictives and assertives, it reduces the categoricalness of the statements and can be seen as a reduction of the forcefulness of the attempt to make the recipient believe what has been said. In other words, modulations of the essential conditions of an act attenuate either the attempt to make someone to perform something or the attempt to make someone believe something. Against this background, the analogy between deontic modulation and epistemic modulation becomes particularly clear. The illocution may be made contradictory and the proposition may be disqualified or be made unclear or vague by operations affecting its essential conditions. This is true regardless of the ontological status of the proposition, which changes according to speech act type. Now, if this happens, the result is that the modified directive or assertiveverdictive act can generate both: a) logical forms of pragmatic inconsistency (cf. Azzoni, 1998), and b) psychological forms of either disqualification (cf. Haley, 1959) or equivocation (cf. Beavin Bavelas et al., 1990), sometimes even leading to cases of micro double-bind. 6.7.2. Attenuation of compliance with preparatory rules According to Searle (1969: 66), the preparatory rule (Austin’s ‘A condition’) for directives is that “H is able to do A”. In instances of external mitigation, the attenuation of compliance with this rule is realized by either affirmative hypothetical constructions (‘if you like’, ‘if you can’) or negative ones (‘if it doesn’t take you too long’). However, the prototypical form of conventional indirectness is the question about the validity of the preparatory condition necessary to perform the act (e.g. ‘could you?’, etc., with or without additional mitigating devices like ‘maybe’, ‘by any chance’, etc.). Through frequent use, this mitigating strategy has generated fixed formulas that Searle calls ‘indirect’ speech acts. As necessary preparatory conditions for making statements and expressing verdicts, speakers must possess knowledge of the states of affairs to which they refer. Mitigation affects these preparatory conditions by signaling that they are only partially fulfilled. Speakers mitigate self-attributions of competence

Grammar of mitigation in doctor-patient dialogue

257

through disclaimers like ‘if I’m not wrong’, ‘if I remember correctly’, ‘I might be wrong, but’, ‘if I’ve understood correctly’ (see ex. 41), etc. 6.7.3. Attenuation of compliance with the propositional content rule The propositional content rule was formulated by Searle and has no equivalent in Austin’s theory. It is affected by mitigation of the reference act by approximating devices such as Lakoff’s hedges or by the devices introducing fuzziness or vagueness that I have called bushes. In connection with requests, compliance with the propositional content rule is attenuated by mitigating devices reducing the scope and weight of imposition. The requested action is minimized, as in example 43) (‘the only thing I’d like you to do for me’). Vagueness of propositional content can also mitigate the recipient’s obligations. For instance, in the doctor’s directive in example 18), the phrase qualcosa così (‘something like that’) implicitly gives the patient a choice in deciding which medication she wishes to buy. The propositional content condition also comes into play in exercitive-directive acts in instances of mitigation where the predication of the recipient’s future action is relocated into an indefinite future. This happens with expressions like ‘when you can’ or ‘sooner or later’, or with expressions that qualify the requested/described action (e.g. con calma, ‘at your convenience’, lit. ‘with calm’ in example 17). The kinds of modulations described so far involve semantic operations. In assertiveverdictive acts, mitigation of the propositional content rule consists in reducing the precision of the propositional content by means of: a) specific vagueness introducers like Lakoff’s (1972) hedges and bushes such as praticamente, diciamo, quasi which reduce commitment to the propositional content; b) eventualization introducers like magari and direi; or c) vague reference and predication acts including expressions like ‘something like that’. 18 This latter kind of mitigation, both lenitive and tempering, is similar to some instances of disqualification (cf. Haley, 1959) of the ‘am saying something’ component of the message (cf. 4.7.1.). 6.7.4. Mitigation as a side-effect of the reinforcement of the sincerity rule As pointed out in 4.2., the sincerity condition is the only condition that cannot be mitigated: it can only be reinforced. As can be easily gathered from our ordinary experience as speakers, the sincerity condition is only unidirectionally scalar, since it can be emphasized either explicitly by means of expressions like ‘really’, ‘I mean it’, etc., or implicitly (also nonverbally) through indices of immediacy (cf. Wiener and Mehrabian, 1968; 4.5.) but it cannot be de-emphasized or attenuated by expressions like ‘sort of’, ‘a little’, etc. 18

A similar strategy is adopted in promises, in which temporal and modal vagueness, e.g. eventualization, is achieved through subordination of the promise within an if-clause. This results in a general reduction of the commitment to the performance of the act.

258

Mitigation

What is more, particular mitigating effects are produced by reinforcing modulations of the sincerity condition itself. These are related to immediacy and are realized by means of address terms expressing deference, distance, or affect. The use of deferential address terms, which is part of classical rhetoric’s captatio, has traditionally been seen in pragmatics as a strategy employed to mitigate requests (cf. Ervin-Tripp, 1976; Blum-Kulka, 1990). This is a legacy of Brown and Levinson’s model of politeness, which regards this strategy as an appeal to the recipient’s positive face. In fact, this view is untenable in other models, as the use of address terms clearly reinforces speakers’ attempts to make their hearers do and/or believe things. In connection with exercitive-directive acts (where these mechanisms operate in a simpler, more homogeneous way), the use of address terms does not have an attenuating effect on the definition of the relation (cf. 4.7.1.). Rather, it has a modalizing – in Greimas and Courtés’ (1979) terms, a ‘timic’ – effect on the obligation imposed through the exercitive-directive. The obligation is actually reinforced, but it is presented as affectively motivated. The act is thus requested, ordered, or prescribed etc., to an emotionally connotated recipient, or, as in the case of the ethical dative (see ex. 20), is issued by an emotionally connotated utterer. This emotional involvement legitimizes, and therefore strengthens, the directive or the other act. In such cases, the mitigating effect is indirect: a complex outcome of the definition of the relation thus obtained. The request typically takes a form like: ‘I am asking you not on behalf of any power or authority, but in the name of our emotional relationship’. Ultimately, we can only refer to such examples as instances of mitigation if we include within mitigating operations indirect attenuating strategies aimed at easing the attainment of given perlocutionary effects. Differently from mitigating operations aimed at attenuating aspects of the illocution (i.e. operations focused on prâxis), indirect mitigation of the kind described above, centered on perlocutions, affects poìesis. Returning to the question of the structural analogy between lenitive and tempering mitigation, it can be claimed that the use of emotionally connotative address terms has a strengthening effect in both requests and statements. Such terms are described as ‘apostrophes’ and ‘effects of presence’ by rhetoricians and as ‘indicators of immediacy’ by some social psychologists. These emotionally loaded terms clearly show the complex interplay, functioning through multiple implicatures, of instrumental and relational aspects of communication which has been stressed from the outset of this book. On the whole, in answer to question c1) at the beginning of Section 6.1., we may conclude that both lenitive and tempering mitigation are realized by devices that at least in part are related to evaluations of what speech act analysis has described in terms of felicity conditions. Speech act theory thus enables us to make generalizations that help tentatively explain certain basic similarities between these two main forms of mitigation.

Grammar of mitigation in doctor-patient dialogue

259

6.8. CONCLUSIONS: TOWARD A PRAGMATIC TYPOLOGY OF MITIGATORS In the present chapter I have discussed a number of examples taken from doctor-patient encounters. These include instances of mitigation in the narrow sense, and instances of mitigation affecting two main types of illocutionary acts: exercitive-directive acts and assertive-verdictive acts. Exercitive-directive acts are attenuated by lenitive mitigating devices that reduce the addressee’s obligation to do what the speaker suggests or commands, whereas assertive-verdictive acts are attenuated by tempering mitigating devices that reduce the speaker’s responsibility for her or his own statements or judgments. In lenitive mitigation the speaker’s relation with the recipient is foregrounded. In tempering mitigation what is foregrounded is the speaker’s relation to the truth of the propositional content. Lenitive mitigation is rooted in politeness. In the institutional context of the doctor-patient encounters discussed in this chapter, politeness is often a form of professional face-work in which the doctor constructs a professional image of her/himself while simultaneously signaling a particular relationship to the patient. Tempering mitigation, on the other hand, is rooted in cautiousness. Caution as a basic motivational dimension is inherent in institutional communication in general and in therapeutic interaction in particular. There is a clear connection between these two types of mitigation. For instance, in many communicative situations, opinions that are expressed too categorically or intemperately can be considered impolite. 19 Some ways of thinking of this connection have been discussed in 6.5.2. As we have seen, Leech’s (1983) modesty maxim can be reinterpreted as implicitly referring to interplay between epistemic phenomena (e.g. modalizations of statements implying various degrees of commitment) and interactional politeness and face-work. According to Givón (1989), communication is a continuum ranging from modes of truth to modes of manipulation; the epistemic modality itself is crypto-pragmatic. In my view, connections between epistemic and interactional phenomena are not just symptomatic of the simultaneous presence of different heterogeneous dimensions, at different analyzable levels, of a given utterance, whether mitigated or not. Indeed, the study of pragmatic and stylistic modulations of utterances gives us the opportunity to understand how the various elements contribute to the interactive construction of meaning. In investigating indexically anchored communicative choices, the integrated pragmatic analysis of formal elements of utterances allows us to fathom the intertwined interactional 19

On the other hand, there are (behabitive) speech acts in which the opposite may be true, as in expressions of congratulation or of a judgment as a second move in an adjacency pair. Congratulations require sufficient emphasis (in particular, the interlocutor’s achievement must be maximized). Similarly, positive judgments in response to a first positive judgment must be reinforced in order to be considered a ‘preferential move’ in polite conversation (cf. Pomerantz, 1984). Incidentally, this point can be seen as confirming Strawson’s (1964) view I have stressed in 2.2.2., namely, that intensity is part and parcel of (the understanding of) illocutions.

260

Mitigation

dimensions simultaneously at work: in this chapter, I have tried precisely to disentangle the contribution of every single choice to this complex machinery. As we have seen, both speech acts’ practical and instrumental purposes (the attainment of the act’s perlocution) and their relational purposes (the construction of the image of the self and the other, and of the image of the self with respect to the other) are shaped by formal devices. In this chapter, I have tried to give a few answers to the questions asked at the beginning of Section 6.1. These tend to confirm an important point that cross-linguistic studies of mitigation have already proved but that has not yet been accorded the relevance it deserves: apart from a limited number of specialized mitigating devices that operate on given types of illocutions, attenuating strategies are essentially the same regardless of the type of illocution they modify. The examples discussed here show that, from a formal perspective, mitigating devices can be divided into two main groups: ‘primary mitigating devices’ and ‘secondary mitigating devices’ (cf. Hölker, 1988). The primary devices can be further subdivided into ‘substitutive’ devices and ‘additive’ devices (cf. Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 1990-1994, Vol. 2, 1992: 199-200). For this latter distinction I have drawn on the basic rhetorical processes of substitution and addition (cf. Lausberg, 1967). In many languages, the preferred form of lenitive mitigation is substitution. This is typically realized by so-called indirect speech acts (cf. Searle, 1975). In indirect requests, for instance, where a preparatory condition for the fulfillment of the act is formulated (e.g. ‘can you give him a ring?’), mitigation is similar to the rhetorical figure of percontatio in rhetorical questions. Shields are also substitutive devices, in the sense that they act as substitutive elements in Bühler’s (1934) deictic triad, ‘I-here-now’ (cf. 1.3.2.; 3.3.4.). Tempering mitigation, on the other hand, tends to be additive. The main additive means of internal mitigation (cf. Blum-Kulka et al., 1989), whether lenitive or tempering, are: x

morphological devices, e.g. diminutive suffixes, modal uses of tenses, vocatives, address terms (rhetorical apostrophes);

x

syntactic devices, e.g. hypothetical constructions; and,

x

lexical devices, e.g. markers like ‘a bit’, ‘a second’, etc.

The main additive means of external mitigation for both illocutionary macro-classes are: x

if-clauses;

x

pre-sequences;

x

explanations;

x

grounders of the head act.

In the light of what has been said thus far, there seem to be no sharp illocutionary distributional constraints on the occurrence of mitigating devices (as hypothesized in 6.1.). Rather, the examples discussed here prove the existence of two basic groups of mitigators:

Grammar of mitigation in doctor-patient dialogue

261

those specialized for specific types of illocution on the one hand, and those that can be used to modify different features of various kinds of illocutionary acts on the other hand. Within the specialized group, an entire class of devices is made up of epistemic mitigators specialized for assertives. These are the so-called evidentials, which include disjuncts and parenthetical verbs that simultaneously signal mitigation and illocution. To take just an example, as a number of studies on disjuncts have shown, an adverb like probabilmente (‘probably’) has a twofold function. On the one hand, it mitigates the illocutionary force of a speech act by reducing epistemic commitment to the utterance. On the other, it presupposes the assertive force of the act. Similarly, within the large group of mitigators specialized for requests, per favore (‘please’) mitigates the directive illocutionary force of the act while at the same time signaling the very fact that the utterance is a directive. We may thus hypothesize that between these two groups of mitigators an inclusive relationship holds: the macro-category ‘mitigating devices’ includes a sub-category of specialized markers that are also illocutionary force indicating devices (IFIDs). Such specialization may be explained diachronically in terms of the conventionalization of linguistic devices. In many cases, the process in question can be described in terms of grammaticalization (cf., among others, Traugott Closs and Dasher, 2002). What is important for my present purposes is, however, that these devices come to have different degrees of transparency as they undergo the process of ‘bleaching’ or desemantization, and through this process some of them become frozen mitigators (cf. Labov and Fanshel, 1977: 83). From a theoretical point of view, it seems reasonable to assume that the specialization (or grammaticalization) of some mitigating devices such as IFIDs depends on the fact that these markers are directly linked to the essential conditions of the speech act. On the other hand, mitigators like un attimo, un po’, per caso, magari, etc. (‘a second’, ‘a bit’, by any chance’, ‘maybe’, etc.) are based on general temporal or logical semantic operations such as eventualization. The latter can be introduced by expressions like per caso and magari, or by sub-standard variants such as delle volte, as in example 21). In conclusion, the analysis of formal devices of tempering mitigation in assertive-verdictive acts and of lenitive mitigation in exercitive-directive acts has confirmed, from a microstructural and grammatical point of view, a connection between the two that had already emerged functionally. Further, the punctual reference to felicity conditions has allowed us to make this connection explicit. Despite the limited number of examples discussed in this chapter, the formal analogy envisaged between epistemic/tempering mitigation and deontic/lenitive mitigation enables us to draw the following general conclusion (which naturally requires corroboration by further evidence): there is a structural analogy between modulated acts with claims to truth and modulated acts with claims to validity. This analogy can at least partially be accounted for by the fact that both epistemic and deontic mitigation make reference to felicity conditions (cf. 6.7.). This first general result sheds some light on the

262

Mitigation

blurred boundary between truth and validity. Both appear to be intertwined evaluation dimensions of communicative behavior which aims first and foremost at constructing intersubjectively understanding, agreement and unity.

CONCLUSIONS 1st Gent. 2d Gent.

Such men as this are feathers, chips, and straws, Carry no weight, no force. But levity Is causal too, and makes the sum of weight; For power finds its place in lack of power; Advance is cession, and the driven ship May run aground because the helmsman’s thought Lacked force to balance opposites. George Eliot, Middlemarch, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998 [1871], p. 303.

The discussion carried out in the preceding chapters has led to a number of conclusions on the issues raised in the book. These conclusions, together with observations on issues that are still being debated, have already been advanced in the final section of each chapter. Here, it will be enough to sum up the following features that, taken together, characterize mitigating operations. As a result of an integrated analysis that takes into account contextual, sequential and stylistic factors, it can be argued that mitigated choices are: ƒ

ƒ ƒ ƒ ƒ ƒ

functional – with respect to both self- and other-protection – to the accomplishment of interactional tasks within specific activity types aimed at the attainment of specific goals; multi-dimensional and operative within a number of heterogeneous parameters, which co-vary in either a co-oriented or a non co-oriented way; inherently ambivalent, in that they belong to analogic (hence defeasible) communication; operating on various inferential levels within the decoding process; crucial for the adjustment of inferrable emotive distances within the metapragmatic monitoring of the interaction; and correlates of the felicity conditions of speech acts.

264

Mitigation

Moreover, the analysis of a number of examples taken from a corpus of doctor-patient and psychotherapist-client interviews has enabled me to pinpoint: ƒ ƒ ƒ

both structural and functional analogies between mitigation of assertive illocutionary acts and mitigation of directive illocutionary acts; both instrumental and relational functions; and the crucial role of mitigation in the relational adjustment and the emotive attunement.

What I am going to suggest here is a concluding, although by no means definitive, typology of the various mitigating devices registered in the conversations analyzed. This is a tentative general typology of mitigators in the activity types ‘doctor-patient interview’ and ‘psychotherapeutic session’. The main classification criterion that has been adopted is the type of abstract scope of the mitigating operation (cf. Chapter 2). The following list must be integrated with the categorizations introduced in Chapter 6 with respect to primary and secondary means for both lenitive mitigation (in exercitive-directive acts) and tempering mitigation (in assertive-verdictive acts). As I have more than once pointed out in the present book, a comprehensive classification of mitigating devices is not only outside the scope of this book, but is also a self-defeating task, given the inherently multifunctional, indexical and ambivalent nature of the object of analysis. What follows aims only at listing specific occurrences within specific activity types. As has been noted in the previous chapters, many mitigating devices may belong to more than one class, and classes may easily overlap. I have maintained the abbreviations used in Chapter 6: they indicate the type of therapeutic encounter from which the examples are taken (cf. Appendix B). The latter are either quotations from specific exchanges or recurrent occurrences throughout the corpus. I have ‘expanded’ the examples whenever I thought some kind of micro-contextualization was called for. Certainly, a lot of work remains to be done, in terms of both empirical research and theoretical developments, in order to analyze attenuating mechanisms in greater detail, trace the process of their specialization from a diachronic perspective, 1 shed further light on the links between the various kinds of mitigation, the carrying out of different activities and the ensuing relational effects (specifically, emotive distances). In short, I have tried to tighten the mesh of the conceptual net I have worked out so far which is still too loose. Deficient as it may be, however, this net appears to be able to capture significant pragmatic phenomena of spoken Italian, a language that for too long has ‘escaped’ this kind of investigation.

1

For interesting proposals on the directionalities of semantic change, see Traugott Closs and Dasher (2002).

Conclusions

265

Towards a typology of mitigating devices in therapeutic settings I) Ia) Ia 1)

Propositional mitigating devices: PMD (bushes) Scope of mitigation: proposition (phrastic) reference additive means: approximating devices (vagueness introducers, bushes, devices indicating a reduced denotative specificity) un po’ (‘a bit’) xxx + cose del genere (‘xxx + things like that’, e.g. facevo fatica a dichiarare l’interesse cose del genere, ‘I had difficulty in expressing my interest in things like that’, PsS) una cosa di questo genere (‘something like that’, ‘something of that kind’, PsS) un certo (‘a certain’, e.g. un certo tipo di dialogo, ‘a certain type of dialogue’, PsS; un certo tipo di comunicazione, ‘a certain type of communication’, PsS) una specie di (‘a kind of’, e.g. una specie di ginnastica, ‘a kind of physical exercise’, Rt) una certa idea (‘a certain idea’, PsS) xxx + o che (‘xxx + or something’, e.g. un’emorragia o che, ‘a hemorrhage or something’, PsS) una ventina (‘about twenty’, SpV) adjacent reformulation (e.g. settantacinque settantasei, ‘seventy-five seventy-six’, SpV) omission signals eccetera (‘etcetera’, e.g. ansie batticuori paure eccetera, ‘anxiety palpitations fears etcetera’, PsS) eccetera eccetera (‘etcetera etcetera’, PsV) e via dicendo (‘and so on and so forth’, PsV) e così via (‘and so on’, PsV)

Ia 2)

substitutive means: designation attenuating devices: euphemism, periphrasis (in the NP) questa cosa, questa persona (‘this thing’, this person’, PsS) quelle cose ossessive (‘those obsessive things’, Rt) problemi di tipo - di pressione alta (‘problems like - high blood pressure’, PC) diminutives: una puntina (‘a spot+DIM’, PC), un nodino (‘a lump+DIM’, SpV), un grassetto (‘a growth+DIM’, Rt)

266

Mitigation

un po’ di + xxx + diminutive (‘a bit of + xxx + diminutive’, e.g. un po’ di bruciorini un po’ di nauseetta (‘slight burning+DIM slight nausea+DIM’, WR) una cosa e l’altra (‘one thing and the other’, Rt) Ib) Ib 1)

predication additive means praticamente, in pratica (‘practically’, ‘just’, PC, Rt, SpV, PsS) circa (‘about’, WR, PsS) diciamo (‘ let’s say’, e.g. diciamo tre o quattro al giorno, ‘let’s say three or four a day’ SpV) un po’ (‘a bit’, meaning ‘basically’, e.g. quello che un po’ lei chiede, ‘what you’re basically asking’, PsS) più o meno (‘more or less’, PsS), la situazione è più o meno (‘the situation is more or less’, PsS) può essere che (‘it may be that’, PsS) un po’ così (‘a bit like that’, PsS) può darsi che (‘it may be that’, PsS) su per giù ( ‘roughly speaking’, SpV)

Ib 2) Ib 2.1.)

substitutive means negation (litotes, understatement)

non è la sua una vera e propria ernia (‘yours isn’t a real ((lit. real and true (FIG))) slipped disc.’ PC, TR1, ll. 361-362) non è che (‘it’s not that’, e.g. non è che io non abbia momenti di felicità, ‘it’s not that I don’t have moments of happiness’, PsS) non è esclusa la cosa (‘this can't can’t be excluded ((lit. is not excluded this thing))’, PC, TR1, ll. 354-355) Ib 2.2.)

(attenuated) lexical choices

gioco un po’ su queste due piste (‘I’m kind of working on these two tracks’, PsS; T. describing his psychotherapeutic technique) II)

IIa) IIa 1)

Illocutionary mitigating devices: IMD (hedges) Scope of mitigation: neustic (statements) or illocutionary force (felicity conditions). additive means metapragmatic (metapragmatic awareness indicating devices): hesitation indicating devices (fillers, etc.), consultative devices, dialogic style

Conclusions

267

non so (‘I don’t know’) mah (‘well’) no? (‘huh?’) figurati (‘imagine’, ‘believe it or not’) (‘you must be joking, catch on’) IIa 1.1.)

mitigating devices that implicitly refer to a speech act preparatory rule, i.e. Austin’s (1962) A condition concerning the right to invoke a given procedure, authority or competence

Cautionary pre-moves, disclaimers: mi sembra di capire (‘it seems to me that’, SpV, PsS) beh mi sembra di capire (‘well it seems to me that’, PsS) così come la vedo io (‘as far as I can see’, PsS) se non sbaglio (‘if I’m not mistaken’, Rt) da quello che ne so io che non ne so molto (‘as far as I know and I don’t know much’, PsS) ma io sa parlando così proverò col dottore se posso farlo (‘but I you know thought you know I’ll check with the doctor if I can do it’, PC) IIa 1.2.)

mitigating devices that implicitly refer to Austin’s (1962) B condition concerning the correctness and the completeness of the procedure. They signal approximation in the formulation of a given speech act

per così dire (‘so to speak’) nel senso che (‘in the sense that’) vabbe’ (‘ok’, PsS) tutto sommato direi (‘all in all I’d say’, PsS) direi in linea di massima (‘generally speaking I’d say’, PsS) come dire (‘how can I put it’, PsS) voglio dire (‘I mean’, PsV) diciamo così (‘let’s put it this way’, PsS) insomma X (‘well X’, ‘I mean X’) IIa 2)

mitigating devices that implicitly refer to the essential rule (cf. Searle, 1969), particularly attenuating devices affecting the obligation for either the hearer or the speaker to do something or to believe something (requests, proposals, statements) Passe-partout mitigating devices (e.g. un po’, ‘a bit’, un attimo, ‘a second’, un attimino, ‘a second+DIM’, magari, ‘even’, ‘perhaps’, ‘maybe’) tolga un attimino così vediamo (‘move a second so we can see’, Rt)

268

Mitigation

faccia un po’ vedere un attimo (‘let me see a second’, Rt) magari gli dai un’occhiata (‘maybe you can have a look at that’, PsS) magari fermiamoci un attimo qui (‘maybe we can stop here for a moment’, PsS) pure (‘as well’, e.g. ascolto pure il sogno, ‘I listen to the dream as well’, PsS) explanations, grounders così evita di (‘this way you avoid’, PC) che devo fare una manovra che se no: (‘I need to do something otherwise’, PC) equivocation, disqualification dovrà fare della fisioterapia o vedere un po’ (‘you will have to do some physical therapy or something’, PC) IIa 3)

epistemic commitment modulating devices with reference to the essential rule for assertive acts, i.e. “the proposition presents a state of things” forse (‘maybe’) magari (‘maybe’, PsS) probabilmente (‘probably’) parenthetical verbs, immagino (‘I suppose’, ‘I think’, PsS) tutto sommato, direi (‘all in all’, ‘I’d say’, PsS)

IIa 4)

subjectivizers/epistemic certainty restricting devices (that make the proposition a subjective opinion) secondo me (‘in my opinion’, PC) a mio parere (‘in my opinion’, SpV)

IIb) IIb 1)

substitutive means partial substitution: IFID attenuating devices, e.g. conditional mood (instead of indicative mood) with or without other means (frequent combination of means direi di fare dei colloqui (‘I’d say to do some sessions’, PsS) io proporrei (‘I’d suggest’, PsS) io le proporrei (‘I’d suggest to you’, PsV) questa depressione potrebbe anche essere (‘this depression could also be’, PsS) mi sembra che (‘it seems to me that’, PsS) direi che in prima approssimazione (‘I’d hazard a guess’, PsS) conditional + hypothetical premise (e.g. io le proporrei se vuole, ‘I’d suggest to you…if you want’, PsV)

IIb 2)

overall substitution (indirect speech acts, hypothetical constructions, rhetorical questions)

Conclusions

269

ha voglia di scoprirsi un attimo? (‘would you mind to undress a bit?’, PC) magari fermiamoci un attimo qui (‘maybe we can stop here for a moment’, PsS) se lei riuscisse a andare là con l’esame già fatto sarebbe meglio (‘if you could go there with your test done it would be better’, PC) non è perché deve ancora imparare… (‘it’s not because you still have to learn…’, PsS) III) IIIa)

Enunciative mitigating devices: EMD (shields). Scope of mitigation: instance d’énonciation, deictic origin, actantial deictic shields: ‘not-I’, ‘not-You’ (change of footing, generic person, quotational shields). dice guarda (‘she says look’, PC) another speaker’s direct speech objectivization: 3rd person singular quando uno diventa nervoso fa così (‘when one get nervous one acts like that’, PsV, gnomic present) fra virgolette (‘in inverted commas’, ‘quote unquote’, PsS, similar to the metapragmatic use of per così dire, ‘so to speak’)

IIIb)

spatial-temporal shields: ‘not-here, ‘not-now’ ‘not here’, modal imperfect, narrativization inclusive enallage + dramatization (direct speech with interjections) quando piangiamo diciamo mamma che tristezza (‘when we cry we say God (lit. mum) how sad’, PsS)

IV)

Other means Paralinguistic and prosodic means (e.g. suspensive intonation, justification tone) mimic and proxemic means (e.g. smile, laughter) metacommunicative means (e.g. qualification of the overall communicative modality, as in evaluative adverbs like paradossalmente, ‘paradoxically’, PC, TR1, l. 353) jokes (PsS).

Mitigation as a side-effect Local (coextensive with a sentence) mitigating strategies (micro-strategies) and conversational/textual mitigating strategies (macro-strategies)

270

Mitigation

A)

Semantic strategies

The mitigating effect is produced by presenting the proposition as either hypothetical or set within a paradigm of possibilities, thus introducing an unreal modality or another possible world. This effect is obtained by using hypothetical constructions, by adding a conditional premise (e.g. se riesce, ‘if you can manage’, se ha tempo, ‘if you have time’), or an eventualization marker (e.g. per caso, ‘by any chance’, magari, ‘maybe’): A1)

eventualization

ci fosse…da operare (‘if they had to operate’, PC, TR1, ll. 353-354) magari (‘maybe’, e.g. a volte magari gli oggetti del sogno, ‘sometimes maybe the objects of the dream’, PsS) delle volte (‘some time’ cotextually meaning ‘(if you could) it would be great’, PC) B)

Metacommunicative strategies B1)

fictionalization. Opening of a possible world, for instance by producing a parody of the current situation:

come se (‘as if’) mettiamo il caso (‘let’s suppose’) ad esempio + fiction (‘for example’) lei non faccia più nulla faccio tutto io […] lei ormai subisce ((tono divertito)) (‘don’t do anything else I’ll do all the work […] you’re just going to have to put up with me’ ((amused tone)), SpV) C)

Sequential strategies C1)

on conditional relevance and the selection of the current topic:

Echoic repetition transactional disqualification lateralization shields (strategic) topic shift (strategic) topic change digression (evasion) C2)

on the display of disagreement: weakened agreement rather than explicit disagreement (“downgraded agreements regularly engender disagreement sequences”, Pomerantz, 1984: 69).

C3)

on the turn-taking system: side sequences, like chat or asides (employed to make the patient feel more at ease), supportive completion of the current speaker’s turn.

Conclusions

D)

271

Textual strategies operating on textual construction and argumentation: D1)

dilution

T. =ma perché cosa fa una volta al me: se:: una volta la settimana C. no. ((tossisce)) anche due tre volte la settimana T. eh quindi. è abbastanza:: C. sì. è recente T. è anche abbastan:za: consistente il problema. C. sì sì. T. due tre volte la settimana si ubriaca. C. sì. (PsS, TR 19, ll.189-197) T. =but because what he does once a mo:nth:: once a week C. no. ((coughs)) even two three times a week T. huh so. it’s quite:: C. yes. it’s recent T. the problem is it’s also qui:te: considerable. C. yeah yeah. T. two three times a week he gets drunk. C. yeah. D2)

lateralization without hierarchization (close to digression)

fra l’altro, anche (‘what’s more’, ‘also’) potrebbe anche voler dire (‘this could also mean’, PsS) è anche comprensibile che lei a luglio si sia un po’ lasciata andare (‘it’s also understandable that in July you let yourself go a little’, PsS). D3)

argumentative re-hierarchization

D3 a)

with an implicit reassessment of the current hierarchy of topics and focalization of the topic thereby introduced:

oltre a tutto (‘on top of that’, PC) a parte il fatto che (‘besides the fact that’, PsS) D3 b)

with an explicit reassessment of the argumentative hierarchization:

ma più che altro (‘but more than that’, PC, SpV) D4)

argumentative focalization: the proposition (which can be qualified with evaluative stances) is assigned the role of conclusion within an argumentative

272

Mitigation

process that signals the cognitive and attitudinal monitoring of the line or reasoning, the careful consideration of pros and cons, etc.: in fondo (‘after all’, PsS) tutto sommato (‘all in all’, PsS) per la peggiore delle ipotesi (lit.‘in the worst of the hypotheses’, ‘if the worst comes to the worst’, ‘in worst case scenario’, PC) D5)

exemplification as reticence: the mitigating effect is obtained by introducing a crucial fact within a paradigm of equally significant facts, thus making it just one among the others:

per esempio (‘for instance’, e.g. per esempio c’è mio papà che ogni tanto beve, ‘for instance there is my father who sometimes drinks’, PsS) E)

Macrostylistic strategies informal register shifts in the degree of intimacy baby-talk.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Abercrombie, David (1967). Elements of general phonetics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Adamzik, Kirsten (1984). Sprachliches Handeln und sozialer Kontakt. Tübingen: Narr. Adelswärd, Viveka and Per Linell (1994). “Vagueness as an interactional resource: The genre of threatening phone calls”, in W. M. Sprondel (ed.), Die Objektivität der Ordnungen und ihre kommunikative Konstruktion. Für Thomas Luckmann. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 261-288. Aijmer, Karin (1984). “‘Sort of’ and ‘kind of’ in English conversation”. Studia Linguistica 38: 118-128. Ammaniti, Massimo and Daniel N. Stern (eds.) (1996 [1992]). Attaccamento e psicoanalisi. Bari: Laterza. Anolli, Luigi and Rita Ciceri (1992). La voce delle emozioni. Verso una semiosi della comunicazione vocale non verbale delle emozioni. Milano: Angeli. Antos, Gerd (1982). Grundlagen einer Theorie des Formulierens. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Aristotle (1956). The Nicomachean ethics. Translated by Harris Rackham. London: Heinemann/Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press. Aristotle (1975). The art of rhetoric. Translated by John Henry Freese. London: Heinemann/Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press. Arndt, Horst and Richard W. Janney (1987). InterGrammar, toward an integrative model of verbal, prosodic and kinesic choices in speech. Berlin, New York, Amsterdam: Mouton de Gruyter. Arndt, Horst and Richard W. Janney (1991). “Verbal, prosodic, and kinesic emotive contrasts in speech”. Journal of Pragmatics 15 (6): 521-549. Aronsson, Karin (1998). “Identity-in-interaction and social choreography”. Research on Language and Social Interaction 31 (1): 75-89. Aronsson, Karin and Ullabeth Sätterlund-Larsson (1987). “Politeness strategies and doctorpatient communication. On the social choreography of collaborative thinking”. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 6 (1): 1-27.

274

Mitigation

Aronsson, Karin and Mia Thorell (1999). “Family politics in children’s play directives”. Journal of Pragmatics 31: 25-48. Asher, Ronald E. and J. M. Y. Simpson (eds.) 1994. The encyclopedia of language and linguistics. Oxford: Pergamon. Atkinson, J. Maxwell and John Heritage (eds.) (1984). Structures of social action. Studies in conversation analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Attardo, Salvatore (1994). Linguistic theories of humour. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Attardo, Salvatore (ed.) (2003). “The pragmatics of humour”. Special issue of the Journal of Pragmatics 35 (9). Auer, Peter (1984). Bilingual conversation. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Auer, Peter (1992). “Introduction: John Gumperz’ approach to contextualization”, in P. Auer and A. di Luzio (eds.), 1-37. Auer, Peter and Aldo di Luzio (eds.) (1992). The contextualization of language. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Austin, John Langshaw (1962). How to do things with words. London: Oxford University Press. Second edition edited by J. O. Urmson and M. Sbisà. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1975. Austin, John Langshaw (1979 [1961]). Philosophical papers. Edited by J. O. Urmson and Geoffrey J. Warnock. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Azzalino, Walther (1954/55). “Mittel der Verstärkung und Abschwächung eines sprachlichen Ausdrucks”. Wirkendes Wort 14-23. Azzoni, Giampaolo M. (1998). Filosofia dell’atto giuridico in Immanuel Kant. Padova: Cedam. Bakhtin, Mikhail (1993). Toward a philosophy of the act. Austin: University of Texas Press. Ballmer, Thomas T. and Manfred Pinkal (eds.) (1983). Approaching vagueness. Amsterdam, New York, Oxford: North-Holland. Bally, Charles (1965 [1925]). Le langage et la vie. Genève: Librerie Droz. Bally, Charles (1965 [1932]). Linguistique générale et linguistique française. Bern: Francke Verlag. Bally, Charles (1970 [1909]). Traité de stylistique française. Genève: Librairie de l’Université Georg & Cie S.A. Bange, Pierre (1986). “Fiktion im Gespräch”, in W. Kallmeyer (ed.), Kommunikationstypologie. Düsseldorf: Schwann, 117-153. Bange, Pierre (1992). Analyse conversationnelle et théorie de l’action. Paris: Didier. Bateson, Gregory, Don D. Jackson, Jay Haley and John J. Weakland (1956). “Toward a theory of schizophrenia”. Behavioral Science 1: 251-264. Bateson, Gregory and Yves Winkin (eds.) (1981). La nouvelle communication. Paris: Editions du Seuil.

Bibliography

275

Bazzanella, Carla (1990). “‘Modal’ uses of the Italian indicativo imperfetto in a pragmatic perspective”, in J.-O. Östman and J. Verschueren (eds.), Selected papers from the International Pragmatics Conference. Antwerp, 17-22 August 1987. Special issue of the Journal of Pragmatics 14 (3): 439-457. Bazzanella, Carla (1995). “I segnali discorsivi”, in L. Renzi et al. (eds.), 225-257. Bazzanella, Carla, Claudia Caffi and Marina Sbisà (1991). “Scalar dimensions of illocutionary force”, in I. Žagar (ed.), Speech acts: Fiction or reality? IprA, Ljubjana, 63-76. Beavin Bavelas, Janet (1985). “A situational theory of disqualification: Using language to ‘leave the field’”, in J. P. Forgas (ed.), Language and social situations. New York, Berlin, Heidelberg, Tokyo: Springer Verlag, 189-211. Beavin Bavelas, Janet, Alex Black, Nicole Chovil and Jennifer Mullett (1990). Equivocal communication. Newbury Park (CA): Sage. Benincà, Paola, Guglielmo Cinque, Elisabetta Fava and Paolo Leonardi (1977). “101 modi per richiedere”, in R. Simone and G. Ruggero (eds.), Aspetti sociolinguistici dell’Italia contemporanea. Roma: Bulzoni, 501-533. Benveniste, Emile (1959). “Les relations de temps dans le verbe français”. Bulletin de la Société Linguistique de Paris 54. Reprinted in: E. Benveniste (1966), 237-250. Benveniste, Emile (1966). Problèmes de linguistique générale. Paris: Gallimard. English translation by M. E. Meek, Problems in general linguistics. Coral Gables, Florida : University of Miami Press, 1971. Benveniste, Emile (1970). “L’appareil formel de l’énonciation”. Langages 17. Reprinted in: E. Benveniste (1974), 79-88. Benveniste, Emile (1974). Problèmes de linguistique générale II. Paris: Gallimard. Berger, Charles R. and James J. Bradac (1982). Language and social knowledge: Uncertainty in interpersonal relationship. London: Edward Arnold. Bergmann, Jörg R. (1992). “Veiled morality: Notes on discretion in psychiatry”, in P. Drew and J. Heritage (eds.), 137-162. Bernini, Giuliano (1992). “Forme concorrenti di negazione in italiano”, in B. Moretti, D. Petrini and S. Bianconi (eds.), Linee di tendenza dell’italiano contemporaneo. Atti del XXV Congresso Internazionale di Studi della SLI. Lugano, 19-21 September 1991. Roma: Bulzoni, 190-215. Bertalanffy, Ludwig von (1968). General system theory. New York: Braziller. Bertinetto, Pier Marco (1986). Tempo, aspetto e azione nel verbo italiano. Firenze: Accademia della Crusca. Billig, Michael (1987 [1996]). Arguing and thinking. A rhetorical approach to social psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Black, Max (1948). “Some questions about emotive meaning”. Philosophical Review 57: 111126.

276

Mitigation

Bliesener, Thomas and Johannes Siegrist (1981). “Greasing the wheels: Conflicts on the round and how they are managed”, in H. Haberland and J. L. Mey (eds.), 181-204. Blum-Kulka, Shoshana (1990). “You don’t touch lettuce with your fingers. Parental politeness in family discourse”. Journal of Pragmatics 14 (2): 259-288. Blum-Kulka, Shoshana (1992). “The metapragmatics of politeness in Israeli society”, in R. Watts et al. (eds.), 255-280. Blum-Kulka, Shoshana (1997). Dinner talk. Cultural patterns of sociability and socialization in family discourse. Mahwah (NJ), London: Lawrence Erlbaum. Blum-Kulka, Shoshana and Juliane House (1989). “Cross-cultural and situational variation in requesting behavior”, in S. Blum-Kulka et al. (eds.), 123-154. Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, Juliane House and Gabriele Kasper (eds.) (1989). Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies. Norwood (NJ): Ablex. Bolinger, Dwight (1972). Degree words. The Hague, Paris: Mouton de Gruyter. Botteri, Inge (1999). Galateo e galatei. La creanza e l’instituzione della società nella trattatistica italiana tra antico regime e stato liberale. Roma: Bulzoni. Bouacha, Abdelmadjid Ali (1993). “L’énoncé généralisant: Statut et enjeux”, in C. Plantin (ed.), 312-322. Bourdieu, Pierre (1982). Ce que parler veut dire. L’économie des échanges linguistiques. Paris: Fayard. Bowlby, John (1973). Attachment and loss. Vol. 2. New York: Basic Books. Brandom, Robert B. (1994). Making it explicit. Reasoning, representing, and discursive commitment. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press. Brown, Keith (ed.) (2006). The encyclopedia of language and linguistics. 2nd Edition. Oxford: Elsevier. Brown, Gillian and George Yule (1983). Discourse Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, Julie R. and Edna L. Rogers (1991). “Openness, uncertainty, and intimacy: An epistemological reformulation”, in N. Coupland et al. (eds.), 146-165. Brown, Penelope and Stephen Levinson (1987 [1978]). Politeness. Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, Roger and Albert Gilman (1960). “The pronouns of power and solidarity”, in T. A. Sebeok (ed.), 253-276. Brown, Roger and Albert Gilman (1989). “Politeness theory and Shakespeare’s four major tragedies”. Language in Society 18: 159-212. Brünner, Gisela and Elisabeth Gülich (eds.) (2002). Krankheit verstehen. Interdisciplinäre Beiträge zur Sprache in Krankheitsdarstellungen. Bielefeld: Aisthesis Verlag. Bublitz, Wolfram (1988). Supportive fellow-speakers and cooperative conversations. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins.

Bibliography

277

Buck, Ross (1984). The communication of emotion. New York, London: The Guilford Press. Bühler, Karl (1934). Sprachtheorie. Jena: Fisher. Caffi, Claudia (1982). “Alla ricerca dei performativi perduti: Considerazioni su alcune proposte di classificazione”. Materiali Filosofici 4/5: 63-93. Caffi, Claudia (1984). “Some remarks on illocution and metacommunication”, in C. Caffi (ed.), Metapragmatics. Special issue of the Journal of Pragmatics 8 (4): 449-467. Caffi, Claudia (1990). “Modulazione, mitigazione, litote”, in M.-E. Conte, A. Giacalone Ramat and P. Ramat (eds.), Dimensioni della linguistica. Milano: Franco Angeli, 169-199. Caffi, Claudia (1992). “Il concetto di coinvolgimento nella linguistica pragmatica”, in G. Gobber (ed.), La linguistica pragmatica. Atti del XXIV Congresso della Società di Linguistica Italiana. Roma: Bulzoni, 267-297. Caffi, Claudia (1994a). “Metapragmatics”, in R. E. Asher and J. M. Y. Simpson (eds.), 24612466. Reprinted in: K. Brown (ed.) (2006), 82-88. Caffi, Claudia (1994b). “Pragmatic presupposition”, in R. E. Asher and J. M. Y. Simpson (eds.), 3320-3327. Reprinted in: K. Brown (ed.) (2006), 17-25. Caffi, Claudia (1999a). “On mitigation”. Journal of Pragmatics 31 (7): 881-909. Caffi, Claudia (1999b [1997 on CDRom]). “Mitigation in doctor-patient interaction”, in Guerci, A. (ed.) Proceedings of the Third European Colloquium of Ethnopharmacology, and the First International Conference of Anthropology and History of Health and Deseases. Genoa, 29 may - 2 june 1996. Genova: Erga Edizioni, 68-77 Caffi, Claudia (2000). “Aspects du calibrage des distances émotives dans l’interaction entre rhétorique et psychologie”, in C. Plantin et al. (eds.), 89-104. Caffi, Claudia (2001). La mitigazione. Un approccio pragmatico alla comunicazione nei contesti terapeutici. Münster: LIT Verlag. Caffi, Claudia (2002). “(Ri)formulazioni nell’interazione terapeutica”, in H. Jansen et al. (eds.), L’infinito e oltre. Omaggio a Gunver Skytte. Odense: Odense U.P., 85-106. Caffi, Claudia (2005). “Un’analisi pragmatica dell’italiano parlato: l’Italienische Umgangssprache di Leo Spitzer”, in K. Hölker and C. Maaß (eds.), Aspetti dell’italiano parlato. Tra lingua nazionale e varietà regionale. Aspekte des gesprochenen Italienisch. Zwischen Nationalsprache und regionaler Vielfalt. Münster: LIT, 41-51. Caffi, Claudia (2006). “Mitigation”, in K. Brown (ed.), 171-175. Caffi, Claudia and Richard W. Janney (1994a). “Planning a bridge”, in C. Caffi and R. W. Janney (eds.), 245-249. Caffi, Claudia and Richard W. Janney (1994b). “Toward a pragmatics of emotive communication”, in C. Caffi and R. W. Janney (eds.), 325-373. Caffi, Claudia and Klaus Hölker (eds.) (1995). Examples. Special issue of Versus 70/71. Caffi, Claudia and Richard W. Janney (eds.) (1994). Involvement in language. Special issue of the Journal of Pragmatics 22 (3/4): 325-373.

278

Mitigation

Cahill, S. E. (1981). “Cross-sex communication”. Berkeley Journal of Sociology 26: 75-88. Calvino, Italo (1988). Six memos for the next millennium. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press. Canepari, Luciano (1985). Intonazione. Napoli: Liguori. Carli, Augusto (1999). “La mitigazione nella lezione universitaria”, in L. Anderson and A. Ciliberti (eds.), La comunicazione accademica. Angeli: Milano, 84-101. Castiglione, Baldesar (1966 [1528]). The book of the courtier. Dutton Everyman: New York. Chafe, Wallace L. (1983). “Integration and involvement in speaking, writing, and oral literature”, in T. Borbé (ed.), Semiotics unfolding. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1095-1102. Chafe, Wallace L. (1986). “Evidentiality in English conversation and academic writing”, in W. L. Chafe and J. Nichols (eds.), Evidentiality: The linguistic coding of evidentiality. Norwood (NJ): Ablex, 261-272. Channell, Joanna (1994). Vague language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cicero (1968 [1942]). De Oratore (Book III). Translated by Harris Rackham. London: Heinemann/Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press. Cicero (1968 [1942]). De Oratore (Book III). Translated by Harris Rackham. London: Heinemann/Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press. Cicero (1981). Rhetorica ad Herennium. Translated by Harry Caplan. London: Heinemann/Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press. Cicourel, Aaron (1992). “The interpenetration of communicative contexts: Examples from medical encounters”, in A. Duranti and C. Goodwin (eds.), 291-310. Clark, Andy (1997). Being there. Putting brain, body and world together again. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press. Clark, Margaret S. and Ian Brissette (2003). “Two types of relationship closeness and their influence on people’s emotional lives”, in R. J. Davidson et al. (eds.), 824-835. Clemen, Gudrun (1997). “The concept of hedging: Origins, approaches and definitions”, in R. Markkanen and H. Schröder (eds.), 235-248. Cole, P. and J. L. Morgan (eds.) (1975). Syntax and semantics. Vol. 3. Speech acts. New York, London: Academic Press. Collier, G., D. Kuiken and M. E. Enzle (1982). “The role of grammatical qualification in the expression and perception of emotions”. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 11: 631-650. Colston, Herbert L. and Albert N. Katz (eds.) (2005). Figurative language comprehension: Social and cultural influences. Hillsdale (NJ): Lawrence Erlbaum. Conte, Maria-Elisabeth (1996). “Anaphoric encapsulation”, in W. De Mulder and L. Tasmoswki (eds.), Coherence and anaphora. Belgian Journal of Linguistics 10: 1-10. Reprinted in: M.-E. Conte (1999).

Bibliography

279

Conte, Maria-Elisabeth (1997). “Performativität versus Kontraperformativität”, in P. Weingartner, G. Schurz and G. Dorn (eds.), Die Rolle der Pragmatik in der Gegenwartsphilosophie. The Role of Pragmatics in Contemporary Philosophy. Beiträge des 20. Internationalen Wittgenstein Symposium. Band 1. Kirchberg am Wechsel, 10-16 August, 1997. Kirchberg am Wechsel: Österreichische Ludwig Wittgenstein Gesellschaft, 170-174. Conte, Maria-Elisabeth (1999 [1988]). Condizioni di coerenza. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso. Cordella, Marisa (2004). The dynamic consultation: a discourse analytical study of doctorpatient communication. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Coupland, Justine, Jeffrey D. Robinson and Nikolas Coupland (1994). “Frame negotiation in doctor-elderly patient consultations”. Discourse and Society 5 (1): 89-124. Coupland, Nikolas, Howard Giles and John M. Wiemann (eds.) (1991). ‘Miscommunication’ and problematic talk. Newbury Park (CA): Sage. Cranach, Mario von, Urs Kalbermatten, Katrin Indermühle and Beat Gugler (eds.) (1980). Zielgerichtetes Handeln. Bern, Stuttgart, Wien: Hans Huber. Daneš, František (1989). “Cognition and emotion in discourse interaction: A preliminary survey of the field”, in W. Bahner, J. Schildt and D. Viehweger (eds.), Proceedings of the Fourtheenth International Congress of Linguists. Berlin, August 10-August 15, 1987. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 168-179. Dascal, Marcelo (ed.) (1999). Misunderstanding. Special issue of the Journal of Pragmatics 31 (6). Davidson, Richard J., Klaus R. Scherer and H. H. Goldsmith (eds.) (2003). Handbook of affective sciences. Oxford: Oxford University Press. De Ferrari, Manuela (2001). “Aspetti stilistici e pragmatici della cortesia nella Italienische Umgangssprache di Leo Spitzer”. Unpublished dissertation. Università di Genova, Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature straniere moderne. De Swaan, Abram (1990). The management of normality. London: Routledge. Dijk, Teun van (1984). Prejudice in discourse. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Dijk, Teun van and Walter Kintsch (1978). “Cognitive psychology and discourse: Recalling and summarizing stories”, in W. Dressler (ed.), Current trends in textlinguistics. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 61-80. Dressler, Wolfgang and Lavinia Merlini Barbaresi (1994). Morphopragmatics. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Dressler, Wolfgang and Lavinia Merlini Barbaresi (2001). “Morphopragmatics of diminutives and augmentatives. On the priority of pragmatics over semantics”, in I. Kenesei and R. M. Harnish (eds.), Perspectives on semantics, pragmatics, and discourse. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 43-58.

280

Mitigation

Drew, Paul and John Heritage (1992). “Analyzing talk at work: An introduction”, in P. Drew and J. Heritage (eds.), 3-65. Drew, Paul and John Heritage (eds.) (1992). Talk at work. Interaction in institutional settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Drew, Paul and A. Wootton (eds.) (1988). Erving Goffman. Exploring the interaction order. Cambridge: Polity Press. Ducrot, Oswald (1980). Les mots du discours. Paris: Minuit. Ducrot, Oswald and Jean-Claude Anscombre (1976). “L’argumentation dans la langue”. Langages 42: 5-27. Duncan, Starkey (1972). “Some signals and rules for taking speaking turns in social conversation”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 23 (2): 283-292. Duranti, Alessandro (1997). Linguistic anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Duranti, Alessandro and Charles Goodwin (eds.) (1992). Rethinking context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. D’Urso, Valentina (1999). “Galateo delle emozioni”. Psicologia e società. XXV (XLVI): 2539. D’Urso, Valentina and Rosanna Trentin (1992). Sillabario delle emozioni. Milano: Giuffrè Editore. D’Urso, Valentina and Rosanna Trentin (eds.) (1988). Psicologia delle emozioni. Bologna: Il Mulino. Eco, Umberto (1975). Trattato di semiotica generale. Milano: Bompiani. Eco, Umberto (1979). Lector in fabula. Milano: Bompiani. Edmondson, Willis (1981). Spoken discourse. A model for analysis. London: Longman. Edmondson, Willis and Juliane House (1981). Let’s talk and talk about it. A pedagogic interactional grammar of English. München, Wien, Baltimore: Urban & Schwarzenberg. Eelen, Gino (2001). A critique of politeness theories. Manchester: St Jerome. Ehlich, Konrad, Armin Koerfer, Angelika Redder and Rüdiger Weingarten (eds.) (1990). Medizinische und therapeutische Kommunikation. Diskursanalytische Untersuchungen. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Ekman, Paul (1973). “Cross-cultural studies of facial expression”, in P. Ekman (ed.), Darwin and facial expression: A century of research review. New York: Academic Press. Elias, Norbert (1978 [1969]). The civilizing process: The development of manners. Translated by Edmund Jephcott. New York: Urizen Books. Erickson, Frederick and Jeffrey Shultz (1982). The counselor as gatekeeper. Social interaction in interviews. New York, London: Academic Press. Ervin-Tripp, Susan (1976). “‘Is Sybil there?’ The structure of some American English directives”. Language and Society 5: 25-66.

Bibliography

281

Ervin-Tripp, Susan, Jiansheng Guo and Martin Lampert (1990). “Politeness and persuasion in children’s control acts”. Journal of Pragmatics 14 (2): 307-331. Fachinelli, Elvio (1992). La freccia ferma. Tre tentativi di annullare il tempo. Milano: Adelphi. Færch, Claus and Gabriele Kasper (1989). “Internal and external modification in interlanguage request realization”, in S. Blum-Kulka et al. (eds.), 221-247. Fairclough, Norman (1992). Discourse and social change. Cambridge: Polity Press. Fasulo, Alessandra (1997). “Other voices, other minds. The use of reported speech in group therapy talk”, in L. Resnick, C. Pontecorvo and R. Saljio (eds.), Discourse, tools and reasoning: Essays on situated cognition. Berlin: Springer Verlag, 205-225. Fele, Giolo (1991). L’insorgere del conflitto. Uno studio sull’organizzazione sociale del disaccordo nella conversazione. Milano: Franco Angeli. Fiehler, Reinhard (1990). Kommunikation und Emotion. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Forgas, Joseph P. (ed.) (2001). Feeling and thinking. The role of affect in social cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fraser, Bruce (1975). “Hedged performatives”, in P. Cole and J. Morgan (eds.), 187-210. Fraser, Bruce (1980). “Conversational mitigation”. Journal of Pragmatics 4: 341-350. Fraser, Bruce (1990). “Perspectives on politeness”. Journal of Pragmatics 14: 219-236. Fraser, Bruce (2005). “Whither politeness”, in R. T. Lakoff and S. Ide (eds.), 65-83. Fraser, Bruce and William Nolen (1981). “The association of deference with linguistic form”. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 27: 93-111. French, Peter (1984). “Problem statements and directives: Some aspects of control sequences in infant classroom interaction”, in P. Auer and A. di Luzio (eds.), Interpretive sociolinguistics. Migrants - children - migrant children. Tübingen: Narr, 163-177. Freud, Sigmund (1955 [1909]). “Notes upon a case of obsessional neurosis”, in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works. Translated and edited by J. Strachey, Hogarth, London, Vol. 10, 153-250. Freud, Sigmund (1961 [1926]). “Inhibitions, symptoms and anxiety”, in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works, Vol. 20, 77-174. Frijda, Niko H. (1982). “The meanings of emotional expression”, in M. R. Key (ed.), Non verbal communication today: Current research. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 103-119. Frijda, Niko H. (1986). The emotions. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press. Fromm Reichman, Frieda (1950). Principles of psychotherapy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gaik, Frank (1992). “Radio talk-show therapy and the pragmatics of possible worlds”, in A. Duranti and C. Goodwin (eds.), 271-289.

282

Mitigation

Galli de’ Paratesi, Nora (1973 [1964]). Le brutte parole. Semantica dell’eufemismo. Milano: Mondadori. Gallois, Cynthia (1994). “Group membership, social rules, and power: A social-psychological perspective on emotional communication”, in C. Caffi and R. W. Janney (eds.), 301-324. Garfinkel, Harold (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Prentice Hall: Englewood Cliff. Ghiglione, Rodolphe (1986). L’homme communiquant. Paris: Colin. Giles, Howard and Nikolas Coupland (1991). Language: Contexts and consequences. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. Giles, Howard, Klaus R. Scherer and Donald M. Taylor (1979). “Speech markers in social interaction”, in K. Scherer and H. Giles (eds.), 343-381. Giles, Howard and W. P. Robinson (eds.) (1990). Handbook of language and social psychology. Chichester: Wiley. Giora, Rachel, Noga Balaban, Ofer Fein and Inbar Alkabets (2005a). “Negation as positivity in disguise”, in H. L. Colston and A. N. Katz (eds.), 233-258. Giora, Rachel, Ofer Fein, Jonathan Ganzi and Natalie Alkeslassy Levi (2005b). “Negation as mitigation: The case of negative irony”. Discourse Processes 39: 81-100. Givón, Talmy (1989). Mind, code and context. Essays in pragmatics. Hillsdale (NJ): Lawrence Erlbaum. Goffman, Erving (1956). “The nature of deference and demeanor”. American Anthropologist 58: 473-502. Reprinted in: E. Goffman (1967), 47-95. Goffman, Erving (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. London: Allan Lane. Goffman, Erving (1961). Encounters: Two studies in the sociology of interaction. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. Goffman, Erving (1967). Interaction ritual. Essays on the face-to-face behavior. New York: Doubleday. Goffman, Erving (1976). “Replies and responses”. Discourse in Society 5: 257-313. Reprinted in: E. Goffman (1981), 5-77. Goffman, Erving (1979). “Footing”. Semiotica 25: 1-19. Reprinted in: E. Goffman (1981), 124157. Goffman, Erving (1981). Forms of talk. Oxford: Blackwell. Goffman, Erving (1989). “Felicity’s conditions”. American Journal of Sociology 89 (1): 1-53. Goodwin, Charles (2005). “Multi-modal action in discourse”. Paper presented at the 9th International Pragmatics Conference. Riva del Garda, Italy, 10-15 July 2005. Gorgias (1982). Encomium of Helen. Edited with introduction, notes and translation by D. M. MacDowell. Bristol: Bristol Classical Press. Graffi, Giorgio (1991). La sintassi tra ottocento e novecento. Bologna: Il Mulino. Greimas, Algirdas J. and Joseph Courtés (1979). Sémiotique. Dictionnaire raisonné de la théorie du langage. Paris: Hachette.

Bibliography

283

Grice, Paul H. (1968). “Utterer’s meaning, sentence meaning and word meaning”. Foundations of Language 4: 225-242. Reprinted in: Grice (1989). Grice, Paul H. (1975). “Logic and conversation”, in P. Cole and J. Morgan (eds.), 41-58. Grice, Paul H. (1989). Studies in the way of words. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press. Grosjean, Michèle and Michèle Lacoste (1999). Communication et intelligence collective. Le travail à l’hôpital. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Grossen, Michèle and Anne Salazar Orvig (eds.) (1998). Clinical interviews as verbal interactions: A multidisciplinary outlook. Special issue of Pragmatics 8 (2). Guidano, Vittorio F. (1988). La complessità del sé. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri. Gumperz, John J. (1982a). Discourse strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gumperz, John J. (1982b). “Fact and inference in courtroom testimony”, in J. Gumperz (ed.), 163-195. Gumperz, John J. (ed.) (1982). Language and social identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gumperz, John J. (1992a). “Contextualization and understanding”, in A. Duranti and C. Goodwin (eds.), 229-252. Gumperz, John J. (1992b). “Contextualization revisited”, in P. Auer and A. di Luzio (eds.), 3953. Gumperz, John J. and Dell H. Hymes (eds.) (1972). Directions in sociolinguistics. The ethnography of communication. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Gunnarsson, Britt-Louise, Per Linell and Bengt Nordberg (eds.) (1997). The construction of professional discourse. London and New York: Longman. Haberland, Hartmut and Jacob L. Mey (eds.) (1981). Wording and warding. Special issue of the Journal of Pragmatics 5 (2/3). Habermas, Jürgen (1970). “Toward a theory of communicative competence”, in H. P. Dreutzek (ed.), Recent sociology No. 2. Patterns of communicative behavior. New York: Macmillan, 115-148. Habermas, Jürgen (1971). “Vorbereitende Bemerkungen zu einer Theorie der kommunikativen Kompetenz”, in J. Habermas, N. Luhmann (eds.), Theorie der Gesellschaft oder Sozialtechnologie: Was leistet die Systemforschung? Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 101-141. Habermas, Jürgen (1987 [1981]). The theory of communicative action. Vol. 2. Life world and system: A critique of functionalist reason. Translated by Thomas McCarthy. Cambridge: Polity Press. Hagège, Claude (1985). L’homme de paroles. Paris: Fayard. Hak, Tony and Fijgje de Boer (1996). “Formulations in first encounters”. Journal of Pragmatics 25 (1): 83-99. Haley, Jay (1959). “An interactional description of schizophrenia”. Psychiatry 22: 321-332.

284

Mitigation

Hall, Christopher, Srikant Sarangi and Stefan Slembrouck (1999). “The legitimation of the client and the profession: identities and roles in social work discourse”, in S. Sarangi, C. Roberts (eds.), 293-322. Halliday, Michael A. K. (1970). “Language structure and language function”, in J. Lyons (ed.), New horizons in linguistics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 140-165. Halliday, Michael A. K. (1976). “Modality and modulation in English”, in G. Kress (ed.), Halliday: System and function in language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 189-213. Hanks, William (1992). “The indexical ground of deictic reference”, in A. Duranti and C. Goodwin (eds.), 46-76. Hare, Richard Mervyn (1970). “Meaning and speech acts”. The Philosophical Review 79: 3-24. Reprinted in: R. M. Hare (1971), Practical Inferences. London: Macmillan, 74-99. Harré, Rom (1985). “Situational rhetoric and self-presentation”, in J. P. Forgas (ed.), Language and social situations. Berlin, New York: Springer Verlag, 175-186. Have, Paul ten (1995a). “Disposal negotiations in general practice consultations”, in A. Firth (ed.), The discourse of negotiation: Studies of language in the workplace. Oxford: Pergamon, 319-344. Have, Paul ten (1995b). “Medical ethnomethodology: An overview”. Human Studies 18: 245261. Haverkate, Henk (1992). “Deictic categories as mitigating devices”. Pragmatics 2 (4): 505522. Heath, Christian (1992). “Diagnosis in the general-practice consultation”, in P. Drew and J. Heritage (eds.), 235-267. Held, Gudrun (1992). “Politeness in linguistic research”, in R. J. Watts et al. (eds.), 131-153. Henkel, Jacqueline (1983). Mitigation, indirection, and women’s speech. A speech act approach. Papers from the Mid-America Linguistics Conference 1982, 76-90. Henzl, Vera M. (1989). “Linguistic means of social distancing”, in W. von Raffler-Engel (ed.), 77-91. Heringer, James (1972). “Some grammatical correlates of felicity conditions and presuppositions”. Working Papers in Linguistics 11: iv-110. Heritage, John (1984). “A change-of-state token and aspects of its sequential placement”, in J. M. Atkinson and J. Heritage (eds.), 299-345. Hickey, Leo (ed.) (1989). The pragmatics of style. London: Routledge. Hill, Jane H. and Judith T. Irvine (eds.) (1993). Responsibility and evidence in oral discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hintikka, Jaakko (1986). “Logic of conversation as a logic of dialogue”, in R. E. Grandy and R. Warner (eds.), Philosophical grounds of rationality. Intentions, categories, ends. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 259-276. Hölker, Klaus (1988). Zur Analyse von Markern. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.

Bibliography

285

Hölker, Klaus (2003). “It. diciamo als Mitigator”, in G. Held (ed.), Partikeln und Höflichkeit. Frankfurt a. M.: Lang, 131-153. Holly, Werner (1979). Imagearbeit im Gesprächen. Tübingen: Narr. Holmes, Janet (1984). “Modifying illocutionary force”. Journal of Pragmatics 8: 345-365. Holtgraves, Thomas (1990). “The language of self-disclosure”, in H. Giles and W. P. Robinson (eds.), 191-207. Horn, Larry R. (1989). A natural history of negation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Horn, Larry R. (1991). “Duplex negatio affirmat…The economy of double negation”. Proceedings of the Chicago Linguistic Society: Parasession on negation 27: 80-106. House, Juliane and Gabriele Kasper (1981). “Politeness markers in English and German”, in F. Coulmas (ed.), Conversational routine. The Hague, Paris, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 157-185. Hübler, Axel (1983). Understatements and Hedges in English. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Hübler, Axel (1987). “Communication and expressivity”, in R. Dirven and V. Fried (eds.), Functionalism in linguistics. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 357-380. Hugdahl, Kenneth and Kjell Morten Stormark (2003). “Emotional modulation of selective attention: Behavioral and psychological measures”, in J. R. Davidson et al. (eds.), 276-295. Hymes, Dell H. (1972). “On communicative competence”, in J. B. Pride and J. Holmes (eds.), Sociolinguistics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 269-293. Hymes, Dell H. (1974). Foundations in sociolinguistics. An ethnographic approach. London: Tavistock. Jacques, Francis (1991 [1982]). Difference and subjectivity. Dialogue and personal identity. Translated by Andrew Rothwell. New Haven, London: Yale University Press. Jakobson, Roman (1960). “Linguistics and poetics”, in T. A. Sebeok (ed.), 350-377. Reprinted in: R. Jakobson (1963). Essays de linguistique générale. Paris: Editions de Minuit. Jankélévitch, Vladimir (1964). L’ironie. Paris: Flammarion. Janney, Richard W. (1992). “Some reflections on foundational questions”. Journal of Pragmatics 17: 467-475. Janney, Richard W. (1996). Speech and affect: Emotive uses of English. Munich. Janney, Richard W. and Horst Arndt (1993). “Universality and relativity in cross-cultural politeness research: A historical perspective”. Multilingua 12: 13-50. Jarvella, Robert J. and Wolfgang H. Klein (eds.) (1982). Speech, place and action. Studies in deixis and related. topics. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. Jayez, Jacques (1990). “The use of an inference-mechanism based over partiality for supplementing fuzzification”, in M. Charolles, S. Fischer and J. Jayez (eds.), Le discours. Représentations et interprétations. Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy, 131-145.

286

Mitigation

Jefferson, Gail (1984). “On the organization of laughter in talk about troubles”, in J. M. Atkinson and J. Heritage (eds.), 346-369. Jespersen, Otto (1924). The Philosophy of Grammar. London: Allen & Unwin. Jones, Elizabeth, Cynthia Gallois, Victor Callan and Michelle Barker (1999). “Strategies of accommodation. Development of a coding system for conversational interaction”. Journal of Language and social Psychology 18 (2): 123-152. Journal of Pragmatics (2003). Vol. 35, Nos. 10-11. About face (Focus-on issue). Jucker, Andreas H., Sara W. Smith and Tanja Lüdge (2003). “Interactive aspects of vagueness in conversation”. Journal of Pragmatics 35 (12): 1737-1769. Kamio, Akio (1994). “The theory of territory of information: The case of Japanese”. Journal of Pragmatics 21 (1): 67-100. Kamio, Akio (1995). “Territory of information in English and Japanese and psychological utterances”. Journal of Pragmatics 24 (3): 235-264. Katriel, Tamar and Marcelo Dascal (1989). “Speaker’s commitment and involvement”, in Y. Tobin (ed.), From sign to text. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 275-295. Kerbrat-Orecchioni, Catherine (1990-1994). Les interactions verbales. 3 Vols. Paris: Colin. Kiefer, Ferenc (1987). “On defining modality”. Folia Linguistica XXI (1): 67-94. Kienpointner, Manfred (1995). “Rhetoric”, in J. Verschueren, J.- O. Östman and J. Blommaert (eds.), Handbook of Pragmatics. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 453-461. Knappe, Karl-Bernhard (1976). “Rhetorik und Pragmatik? Überlegungen zur sprachwissenschaftlichen Rhetorik”, in H. Weber and H. Weidt (eds.), Sprachtheorie und Pragmatik. Akten des 10. Linguistischen Kolloqiums Tübingen 1975, Band 1. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 255-65. Kohut, Heinz (1959). “Introspection, empathy, and psychoanalysis. An examination of the relationship between mode of observation and theory”. Journal of American Psychoanalytical Association 7: 459-483. Kohut, Heinz (1971). The analysis of the self. New York: International Universities Press. Kolde, Gottfried (1989). “Probleme der Beschreibung von sogenannten. Heckenausdrücken im allgemeinen einsprachigen Wörterbuch”, in H. Steger and H. E. Wiegand (eds.), Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Kuiken, Don (1981). “Nonimmediate language style and inconsistency between private and expressed evaluations”. Journal of Experimental Psychology 17: 183-196. Labov, William (1984). “Intensity”, in D. Schiffrin (ed.), Georgetown University Round Table on Language and Linguistics. Washington: Georgetown University Press, 43-70. Labov, William and David Fanshel (1977). Therapeutic Discourse. Psychotherapy as Conversation. New York: Academic Press.

Bibliography

287

Lacoste, Michèle (1981). “The old woman and the doctor: A contribution to the analysis of unequal linguistic exchanges”, in H. Haberland and J. L. Mey (eds.), 169-180. Lakoff, George (1972). “Hedges: A study in meaning criteria and the logic of fuzzy concepts”. Papers from the Eight Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill., 8: 183-228. Reprinted in Journal of Philosophical Logic, 1973, 2: 458-508. Lakoff, Robin (1973). The logic of politeness; or, minding your P’s and Q’s. Papers from the Ninth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. Chicago: University of Chicago, 292-305. Lakoff, Robin (1974). Remarks on this and that. Papers from the Tenth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. Chicago: University of Chicago, 345-356. Lakoff, Robin (1979). “Stylistic strategies within a grammar of style”. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 327: 53-78. Lakoff, Robin (1980). “How to look as if you aren’t doing anything with words. Speech act qualification”. Versus 26/27: 29-47. Lakoff, Robin and Sachiko Ide (eds.) (2005). Broadening the horizon of linguistic politeness. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Langner, Michael (1994). Zur kommunikativen Funktion von Abschwächungen. Münster: Nodus. Lausberg, Heinrich (1967). Elemente der literarischen Rhetorik. München: Max Hueber Verlag. Laver, John and Peter Trudgill (1979). “Phonetic and linguistic markers in speech”, in K. Scherer and H. Giles (eds.), 1-32. Lazzeroni, Romano (1994). “Rileggendo Benveniste: Le relazioni di persona nel verbo”. Rivista di Linguistica 6: 267-274. Leary, Mark R. (1993). “The interplay of private self-processes and interpersonal factors in self presentation”, in J. Suls (ed.), 127-156. Leary, Mark R. (2001). “Affect, cognition, and the social emotions”, in J. Forgas (ed.), 331356. Leary, Mark R. (2003). “The self and emotion: The role of self-regulation in the generation and regulation of affective experience”, in R. J. Davidson et al. (eds.), 773-786. Lee, Benny P.H. (2001). “Mutual knowledge, background knowledge and shared beliefs: Their roles in establishing common ground”. Journal of Pragmatics 33 (1): 21-44. Leech, Geoffrey (1976). “Metalanguage, pragmatics and performatives”, in C. Rameh (ed.), Semantics: Theory and applications. Washington: Georgetown University Press, 81-98. Leech, Geoffrey (1981). “Pragmatics and conversational rhetoric”, in H. Parret et al. (eds.), 413-441. Leech, Geoffrey (1983). Principles of pragmatics. London, New York: Longman.

288

Mitigation

Le Moigne, Jean-Louis (1977). La théorie du système général. Théorie de la modélisation. Presses Universitaires de France: Paris. Le Moigne, Jean-Louis (1995 [1990]). La modélisation des systèmes complexes. Dunod: Paris Leonardi, Paolo and Maurizio Viaro (1990). Conversazione e terapia: L’intervista circolare. Milano: Raffaello Cortina Editore. Levinson, Stephen (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Levinson, Stephen (1988). “Putting linguistics on a proper footing: Explorations in Goffman’s concepts of participation”, in P. Drew and A. Wootton (eds.), 161-227. Levinson, Stephen (1992). “Activity types and language”, in P. Drew and J. Heritage (eds.), 66-100. Levinson, Stephen (2000). Presumptive meanings: The theory of generalized conversational implicature. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press. Lewin, Kurt (1935). A dynamic theory of personality. New York: McGraw-Hill. Linell, Per and Thomas Luckmann (1991). “Asymmetries in dialogue: Some conceptual preliminaries”, in I. Marková and K. Foppa (eds.), 1-20. Lotman, Jurij M. (1976). The structure of the artistic text. Michigan Slavic contributions 7. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Lutz, Catherine (1982). “The domain of emotion words on Ifaluk”. American Ethnologist 9: 113-128. Lyons, John (1977). Semantics. 2 Vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lyons, John (1981). Language, meaning and context. London: Fontana. McCann, C. Douglas and E. Tory Higgins (1990). “Social cognition and communication”, in H. Giles and W. P. Robinson (eds.), 13-32. McTear, Michael and Florence King (1991). “Miscommunication in clinical contexts: The speech therapy interview”, in N. Coupland et al. (eds.), 195-214. Magnani, Lorenzo and Marco Ramoni (1988). “La conoscenza e il ragionamento biomedici: Fondamenti epistemologici”, in C. Cobelli, M. Stefanelli and V. Tagliasco (eds.), La strutturazione del sapere biomedico. Bologna: Pàtron, 63-87. Malinowski, Bronislaw (1949 [1923]). “The problem of meaning in primitive languages”, in C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards (eds.), The meaning of meaning. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 296-336. Mallory, Edward A. and Victor C. Miller (1958). “A possible basis for the association of voice characteristics and personality traits”. Speech Monographs 25: 255-260. Manzotti, Emilio (1995). “Aspetti linguistici dell’esemplificazione”, in C. Caffi and K. Hölker (eds.), 49-114. Manzotti, Emilio and Alessandra Rigamonti (1991). “La negazione”, in L. Renzi and G. Salvi (eds.), 245-317.

Bibliography

289

Markkanen, Raija, and Hartmut Schröder (1997). “Hedging: A challenge for pragmatics and discourse analysis”, in R. Markkanen and H. Schröder (eds.), 3-18. Markkanen, Raija and Hartmut Schröder (eds.) (1997). Hedging and discourse. Approaches to the analysis of a pragmatic phenomenon in academic texts. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Marková, Ivana and Klaus Foppa (eds.) (1991). Asymmetries in dialogue. Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Marty, Anton (1908). Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie. Halle an der Saale: Niemeyer. Måseide, Per (1981). “Sincerity may frighten the patient: Medical dilemmas in patient care”. Journal of Pragmatics 5 (2/3): 145-167. Mathesius, Vilém (1964 [1939]). “Verstärkung und Emphase”, in J. Vachek (ed.), 426-432. Maynard, Douglas W. (1980). “Placement of topic changes in conversation”. Semiotica 30: 263-290. Maynard, Douglas W. (1992). “On clinicians co-implicating recipients’ perspective in the delivery of diagnostic news”, in P. Drew and J. Heritage (eds.), 331-358. Meltzer, Donald (1981 [1976]). “Temperatura e distanza come dimensioni tecniche dell’interpretazione”, in D. Meltzer (ed.), La comprensione della bellezza ed altri saggi. Bologna, Loescher, 170-186. Mey, Jacob, L. (1985). Whose language? A study in linguistic pragmatics. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Mey, Jacob L. (1999). When voices clash. A study in literary pragmatics. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Mey, Jacob, L. (2001 [1993]). Pragmatics. An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell. Meyer-Hermann, Reinhard (ed.) (1978). Sprechen – Handeln – Interaktion. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Meyer-Hermann, Reinhard and Rüdiger Weingarten (1982). “Zur Interpretation und interaktiven Funktion von Abschwächungen in Therapiegesprächen”, in K. Detering, J. Schmidt-Radefeldt and W. Sucharowski (eds.), Sprache erkennen und verstehen. Akten des 16. Linguistischen Kolloquiums Kiel 1981. Band 2. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 242-252. Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1899). Romanische Syntax, in: W. Meyer-Lübke, Grammatik der romanischen Sprachen, Band III. Reisland: Leipzig, 1890-1902. Mishler, Elliot G. (1984). The discourse of medicine: Dialectics of medical interviews. Norwood (NJ): Ablex. Mitchell, Steven, A. (1988). Relational concepts in psychoanalysis. An integration. Cambridge (MA), London: Harvard University Press.

290

Mitigation

Mitchum, Patricia A. (1989). “Verbal and non-verbal communication in a family practice consultation: A focus on the physician-patient relationship”, in W. von Raffler-Engel (ed.), 109-157. Morpurgo-Tagliabue, Guido (1972/1973). “J. L. Austin tra logica e linguistica”. Rivista critica di storia della filosofia 27: 409-443; 28: 55-81. Morpurgo-Tagliabue, Guido (1981). “Grammar, logic and rhetoric in a pragmatic perspective”, in H. Parret et al. (eds.), 493-508. Mortara Garavelli, Bice (1990). “Retorica e analisi del discorso”. Lingua e stile XV (3): 495507. Reprinted in: B. Mortara Garavelli (1995). Ricognizioni. Napoli: Morano Editore, 1935. Mortara Garavelli, Bice (1997 [1988]). Manuale di retorica. Milano: Bompiani. Neustein, Amy (1989). “Medical history-taking as an interactive event”, in W. von RafflerEngel (ed.), 61-76. Newman, Joseph P. and Amanda R. Lorenz (2003). “Response modulation and emotion processing: Implications for psychopathy and other disregulating psychopathology”, in R. J. Davidson et al. (eds.), 904-929. New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Fourth Edition (1993). Edited by Lesley Brown. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nijhof, Gerhardt (1988). “Naming as naturalization in the medical encounter”. Journal of Pragmatics 30: 735-753. Norrick, Neal R. (1978). “Expressive illocutionary acts”. Journal of Pragmatics 2: 277-291. Nunberg, Geoffrey (1981). “Validating pragmatic explanations”, in P. Cole (ed.), Radical pragmatics. New York: Academic Press, 199-222. Ochs, Elinor and Bambi Schieffelin (1989). “Language has a heart”, in E. Ochs (ed.), The pragmatics of affect. Special Issue of Text 9 (1): 7-25. Orletti, Franca (ed.) (1984). Comunicare nella vita quotidiana. Bologna: Il Mulino. Orletti, Franca (ed.) (1994). Fra conversazione e discorso. L’analisi dell’interazione verbale. Roma: La Nuova Italia Scientifica. Osgood, Charles E. (1960). “Some effects of motivation on style in encoding”, in T. A. Sebeok (ed.), 293-306. Osgood, Charles E., George J. Suci and Percy H. Tannenbaum (1957). The measurement of meaning. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Ossola, Carlo (1987). Dal “Cortegiano” all’ “Uomo di mondo”. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri. Parret, Herman (1982). “Nouveaux éléments de pragmatique intégrée”, in J. Sojcher and G. Hottois (eds.), Philosophie et langage. Bruxelles: Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 6175. Parret, Herman (1983). Semiotics and pragmatics: An evaluative comparison of conceptual framework. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Bibliography

291

Parret, Herman, Marina Sbisà and Jef Verschueren (eds.) (1981). Possibilities and limitations of pragmatics. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Peirce, Charles S. (1956). The philosophy of Peirce: Selected writings. Edited by J. Buchler. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Peregrini, Matteo (1960 [1639]). “Delle acutezze, che altrimenti spiriti, vivezze e concetti volgarmente si appellano”, in E. Raimondi (ed.), Trattatisti e narratori del Seicento. Milano, Napoli: Ricciardi, 113-168. Perelman, Chaïm and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca (1958). Traité de l’argumentation. La nouvelle rhétorique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Perry, John (1996). “Indexicals”, in Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Supplement. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan, 257-258. Perry, John (ed.) (1975). Personal identity. Berkeley: University of California Press. Peyrot, Mark (1987). “Circumspection in psychotherapy: Structures and strategies of counselor-client interaction”. Semiotica 65 (3/4): 249-268. Piaget, Jean (1989 [1926]). The language and thought of the child. London: Routledge. Piro, Sergio (1967). Il linguaggio schizofrenico. Milano: Feltrinelli. Plantin, Christian (ed.) (1993). Lieux communs, topoi, stéréotypes, clichés. Paris: Kimé. Plantin, Christian, Marianne Doury and Véronique Traverso (eds.) (2000). Les émotions dans les interactions. Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon. Plett, Heinrich F. (1985). “Rhetoric”, in T. van Dijk (ed.), Discourse and literature. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 59-84. Pomerantz, Anita (1978). “Compliment responses. A note on the cooperation of multiple constraints”, in J. Schenkein (ed.), 79-112. Pomerantz, Anita (1980). “Telling my side: ‘Limited access’ as a ‘fishing’ device.” Sociological Inquiry 50: 186-198. Pomerantz, Anita (1984). “Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: Some features of preferred/dispreferred turn shapes”, in J. Atkinson and J. Heritage (eds.), 57-101. Prague Linguistic Circle (1983 [1929]). “Theses presented to the first Congress of Slavists held in Prague in 1929”, in J. Vachek (ed.), Praguiana: some basic and less known aspects of the Prague Linguistic School. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 77-120. Prince, Ellen F., Joel Frader and Charles Bosk (1982). “On hedging in physician-physician discourse”, in R. J. Di Pietro (ed.), Linguistics and the professions. Proceedings of the Second Annual Delaware Symposium on Language Studies. Norwood (NJ): Ablex, 83-97. Putnam, Hilary (1975). Mind, language and reality. Philosophical papers. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Quintilian (1966 [1921]). Institutio Oratoria. (Books IV-VI). Translated by H. E. Butler. London: Heinemann/Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.

292

Mitigation

Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech and Jan Svartvik (1985). A comprehensive grammar of the English language. London, New York: Longman. Raffler-Engel, von Walburga (ed.) (1990). Doctor-patient interaction. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Raskin, Victor (1985). Semantic mechanisms of humour. Dordrecht: Reidel. Rathmayr, Renate (1999). “Métadiscours et réalité linguistique: L’exemple de la politesse russe”. Pragmatics 9: 75-95. Ravazzoli, Flavia (1981). “Appunti di nuova retorica, fra semantica e pragmatica”. Strumenti critici 44: 154-170. Reprinted in: F. Ravazzoli (1991). Il testo perpetuo. Studi sui moventi retorici del linguaggio. Milano: Bompiani. Reilly, Judy and Laura Seibert (2003). “Language and emotion”, in R. J. Davidson et al. (eds.), 535- 563. Renzi, Lorenzo (ed.) (1988). Grande grammatica di consultazione. Vol. I. La frase. I sintagmi nominale e preposizionale. Bologna: Il Mulino. Renzi, Lorenzo and Giampaolo Salvi (eds.) (1991). Grande grammatica di consultazione. Vol. II. I sintagmi verbale, aggettivale, avverbiale. La subordinazione. Bologna: Il Mulino. Renzi, Lorenzo, Giampaolo Salvi and Anna Cardinaletti (eds.) (1995). Grande grammatica di consultazione. Vol. III. Tipi di frase, deissi, formazione delle parole. Bologna: Il Mulino. Rizzi, Luigi (1988). “Il sintagma preposizionale”, in L. Renzi (ed.), 507-531. Robinson, W. P., A. Shepherd and J. Heywood (1998). “Truth, equivocation/concealment and lies in job application and doctor-patient communication”. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 17 (2): 149-164. Rogers, Carl R. (1951). Client-centered therapy. New York: Houghton Mifflin. Rogers, Carl R. and Marian Kinget (1965-1966). Psychothérapie et relations humaines. Théorie et pratique de la thérapie non-directive. Louvain: Editions Nauwelaerts. Rommetveit, Ragnar (1974). On message structure. London: Wiley. Rosch, Eleanor (1978). “Principles of categorization”, in E. Rosch and B. B. Lloyd (eds.), Cognition and categorization. Hillsdale (NJ): Lawrence Erlbaum, 15-35. Ross, John R. (1970). “On declarative sentences”, in R. A. Jacobs and P. S. Rosenbaum (eds.), Readings in English transformational grammar. Waltham (MA): Ginn and Company, 222272. Rossen-Knill, F. Deborah and Richard Henry (1997). “The pragmatics of verbal parody”. Journal of Pragmatics 27 (6): 719-752. Rostagni, Augusto (1955). “Un nuovo capitolo nella storia della retorica e della sofistica”, in A. Rostagni, Scritti minori. Aesthetica. Torino: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1-59. Roulet, Eddy (1980). “Stratégies d’interaction, modes d’implicitation et marqueurs illocutoires”. Faculté de Lettres de Genève, Cahiers de Linguistique Française 1: 80-103. Ruesch, Jurgen (1957). Disturbed communication. New York: Norton.

Bibliography

293

Sacks, Harvey (1998 [1992]). Lectures on conversation. Oxford: Blackwell. Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel A. Schegloff and Gail Jefferson (1974). “A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking in conversation”. Language 50 (4): 696-735. Reprinted in: J. Schenkein (ed.) (1978), 7-55. Sadock, Jerrold M. (1970). “Whimperatives”, in J. M. Sadock and A. L. Vanek (eds.), Studies presented to Robert B. Lees by his students. Edmonton: Linguistic Research Inc., 223-238. Sadock, Jerrold M. (1977). “Truth and approximations”. Berkeley Linguistic Society Papers 3: 430-439. Salvaneschi, Enrica (1995). Ritorni di parole. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso. Sandig, Barbara (1978). Stilistik. Sprachpragmatische Grundlegung der Stilbeschreibung. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Sapir, Edward (1927). “Speech as a personality trait”. The American Journal of Sociology 32: 892-905. Sapir, Edward (1949). Selected writings of Edward Sapir in language, culture and personality. Berkeley: University of California Press. Sarangi, Srikant and Celia Roberts (eds.) (1999). Talk, work and institutional order. Discourse in medical, mediation and management settings. Berlin-New York: de Gruyter. Saussure, Ferdinand de (1916). Cours de linguistique générale. Paris: Payot. English translation: Course in general linguistics. Translated and annotated by R. Harris. London: Duckworth, 1983. Sbisà, Marina (1972). “Il problema della classificazione degli atti illocutori”, in R. Piovesan (ed.), Ricerche di filosofia linguistica. Firenze: Sansoni, 2-41. Sbisà, Marina (1989). Linguaggio, ragione, interazione. Bologna: Il Mulino. Sbisà, Marina (1994). “Per una pragmatica degli atti linguistici: quasi un bilancio”, in F. Orletti (ed.), 29-44. Sbisà, Marina (2001). “Illocutionary force and degrees of strength in language use”. Journal of Pragmatics 33: 1791-1814. Schegloff, Emanuel A. (1992). “On talk and its institutional occasions”, in P. Drew and J. Heritage (eds.), 101-136. Schenkein, Jim (ed.) (1978). Studies in the organization of conversational interaction. New York: Academic Press. Scherer, Klaus R. and Howard Giles (eds.) (1979). Social markers in speech. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schneider, Stefan (forthcoming). Reduced parenthetical clauses as mitigators. A corpus study of spoken French, Italian and Spanish. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Scollon, Ron and Suzanne Scollon Wong (1995). Intercultural communication: A discourse approach. Oxford: Blackwell.

294

Mitigation

Searle, John R. (1969). Speech acts. An essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Searle, John R. (1975). “A Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts”, in K. Gunderson (ed.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Vol. VII. Language, Mind and Knowledge. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 344-369. Sebeok, Thomas A. (ed.) (1960). Style in language. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press. Seganti, Andrea (1995). La memoria sensoriale delle relazioni. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri. Segre, Cesare (1979 [1974]). Structures and time. Narration, poetry, models. Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press. Segre, Cesare (1988 [1981]). “Style”, in C. Segre, Introduction to the analysis of the literary text. Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 258-276. Selting, Margret (1994). “Emphatic speech style – with special focus on the prosodic signalling of heightened emotive involvement in conversation”, in C. Caffi and R. W. Janney (eds.), 375-408. Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Fifth Edition (2002). Edited by William Trumble, Lesley Brown. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sifianou, Maria (1992a). “The use of diminutives in expressing politeness: Modern Greek versus English”. Journal of Pragmatics 17: 155-173. Sifianou, Maria (1992b). Politeness phenomena in England and Greece. A cross-cultural perspective. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Silverman, David (1987). Communication and medical practice. Social relations in the clinic. London: Sage. Simmel, Georg (1983 [1906]). “Psychologie der Diskretion”, in G. Simmel, Schriften zur Soziologie. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Skytte, Gunver, Giampaolo Salvi and M. Rita Manzini (1991). “Frasi subordinate all’infinito”, in L. Renzi and G. Salvi (eds.), 536-537. Slugoski, Ben R. and William Turnbull (1988). “Cruel to be kind and kind to be cruel: sarcasm, banter and social relations”. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 7 (2): 101-121. Sluzki, Carlos E., Janet Beavin, Alejandro Tarnopolsky and Eliseo Veron (1967). “Transactional Disqualification. Research on the double bind”. Archives of General Psychiatry 16: 494-504. Spitzer, Leo (1922). Italienische Umgangssprache. Bonn, Leipzig: Kurt Schröder Verlag. Spitzer, Leo (1928). “Zur sprachlichen Interpretation von Wortkunstwerken”. Neue Jahrbücher für Wissenschaft und Jugendbildung VI: 632-651. Reprinted in: L. Spitzer (1931). Romanische Stil- und Literaturstudien. Vol. I. Marburg an der Lahn: Elwert, 4-31. Stame, Stefania (1994). “Su alcuni usi di no come marcatore pragmatico”, in F. Orletti (ed.), 205-216.

Bibliography

295

Stankiewicz, Edward (1964). “Problems of emotive language”, in T. A. Sebeok (ed.), Approaches to semiotics. The Hague: Mouton de Gruyter, 239-264. Stein, Nancy L., Bennett Leventhal and Tom Trabasso (eds.) (1990). Psychological and biological approaches to emotions. Hillsdale (NJ): Lawrence Erlbaum. Stern, Daniel N. (1985). The interpersonal world of the infant. New York: Basic Books. Stern, Daniel N. (2004). The present moment in psychotherapy and everyday life. New York: Norton. Stern, Daniel N., Louis W. Sander, Jeremy P. Nahum, Alexandra M. Harrison, Karlen LyonsRuth, Alec C. Morgan, Nadia Bruschweiler-Stern, and Edward Z. Tronick (1998). “Noninterpretive mechanisms in psychoanalytic therapy”. International Journal of PsychoAnalysis 79: 903-921. Stirling, Lesley (1981). “Anaphora and deixis in a corpus of doctor-patient consultations”. Unpublished dissertation. Department of English, University of Queensland. Stolorow, Robert D. and George E. Atwood (1992). Contexts of being: The intersubjective foundations of psychological life. Hillsdale (NJ): Lawrence Erlbaum. Strawson, Peter F. (1964). “Intention and convention in speech acts”. Philosophical Review 73: 439-460. Stubbs, Michael (1983). Discourse analysis. The sociolinguistic analysis of natural language. Oxford: Blackwell. Suls, Jerry (ed.) (1993). Psychological perspectives on the self. Hillsdale (NJ): Lawrence Erlbaum. Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary (1976). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Tannen, Deborah (1984). Conversational style. Norwood (NJ): Ablex. Tannen, Deborah (1989). Talking voices: Repetition, dialogue, and imagery in conversational discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tedeschi, T. James (ed.) (1981). Impression management. Theory and social psychological research. New York, London: Academic Press. Terkourafi, Marina (1999). “Frames for politeness: A case study”. Pragmatics 9 (1): 97-117. Terracini, Benvenuto (1963). Lingua libera e libertà linguistica. Torino: Einaudi. Terracini, Benvenuto (1976). “La speculazione teoretica dei linguisti”, in B. Terracini, I segni e la storia. Napoli: Guida Editori, 93-104. Tetlock, Philip E. and A. S. R. Manstead (1985). “Impression management versus intrapsychic explanations in social psychology: A useful dichotomy?”. Psychological Review 92 (1): 5977. Thakerar, Jitrentra, Howard Giles and Jenny Cheshire (1982). “Psychological and linguistic parameters of speech accommodation theory”, in C. Fraser and K. R. Scherer (eds.), Advances in the social psychology of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 205255.

296

Mitigation

Thibault, Paul J. (1999). “Communicating and interpreting relevance through discourse negotiation: An alternative to relevance theory”. Journal of Pragmatics 31 (4): 557-594. Thomas, Jenny (1985). “The language of power: Towards a dynamic pragmatics”. Journal of Pragmatics 9 (6): 765-783. Thomas, Jenny (1989). “Discourse control in confrontational interaction”, in L. Hickey (ed.), 133-156. Todd, Dundas Alexandra and Sue Fisher (eds.) (1993). The social organization of doctorpatient interaction. Norwood (NJ): Ablex. Tomashevsky, Boris (1928). “Sjužetnoe postroenie”, in B. Tomashevsky, Teorija literatury. Poetika. Moscow-Leningrad, 131-165. Italian transl. “La costruzione dell’intreccio”, in T. Todorov (ed.), I formalisti russi. Torino: Einaudi, 1968, 307-350. Traugott Closs, Elizabeth and Richard B. Dasher (2002). Regularity in semantic change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Traverso, Véronique (2000). “Les émotions dans la confidence”, in C. Plantin et al. (eds.), 205221. Tuckett, David, Mary Boulton, Coral Olson and Anthony William (1995). Meetings between experts. London, New York: Tavistock. Urmson, James Opie (1952). “Parenthetical verbs”. Mind 61: 480-496. Vachek, Josef (ed.) (1964). A Prague School reader in linguistics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Venier, Federica (1991). La modalizzazione assertiva. Milano: Franco Angeli. Verschueren, Jef (1987). “Pragmatics as a theory of linguistic adaptation”. IPrA Working Document 1. Volek, Bronislava (1987). Emotive signs in language and semantic functioning of derived nouns in Russian. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Watts, Richard J. (2003). Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Watts, Richard J. (2003). Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Watts, Richard J., Sachiko Ide and Konrad Ehlich (eds.) (1992). Politeness in language. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Watzlawick, Paul (1981). “Structures de la communication psychotique”, in G. Bateson et al. (eds.), 238-254. Watzlawick, Paul, Janet Beavin and Don Jackson (1967). Pragmatics of human communication. New York: Norton. Weber, Max (1978 [1922]). Economy and Society. Edited by G. Roth, C. Wittich. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. Webster's new world dictionary (1988). Third College Edition. Cleveland, New York: Klett. Weingarten, Rüdiger (1990). “Reformulierung in der Gesprächspsychotherapie”, in K. Ehlich et al. (eds.), 228-240.

Bibliography

297

Weinrich, Harald (1966). “Per una linguistica della menzogna”. Lingua e stile I (1): 7-22. West, Candace and Richard M. Frankel (1991). “Miscommunication in medicine”, in N. Coupland et al. (eds.), 166-194. Wiener, Morton and Albert Mehrabian (1968). Language within language: Immediacy, a channel in verbal communication. New York: Appleton Century-Crofts. Wierzbicka, Anna (1985). “Different cultures, different languages, different speech acts: Polish vs. English”. Journal of Pragmatics 9: 145-178. Wierzbicka, Anna (1991). Cross-cultural pragmatics. The semantics of human interaction. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Winnicott, Donald W. (1965). The maturational process and the facilitating environment. London: Hoghart Press. Wodak, Ruth (1997). “Critical discourse analysis and the study of doctor-patient interaction”, in B.-L. Gunnarsson et al. (eds.), 173-200. Wunderlich, Dieter (1976). Studien zur Sprechakttheorie. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp.

This page intentionally left blank

APPENDICES TRANSCRIPTION CONVENTIONS . ? , ! -: ƑƑxx xxx XXX °xxx° h = +xxx* (…?) ((xx)) […] >xxx