Paul Grice - Grice’s Maxims

According to Grice, speakers follow four maxims. These maxims are also known as the co - operative maxims. All four of these are maxims that all speakers should adhere too.

Quality

where all information provided is truthful and correct, and speakers do not knowingly mislead.

Quantity

When an individual provides as much information as possible and there is an appropriate amount of detail.

Relevance

When a speaker keeps to what is being discussed.

Manner

When someone remains brief and clean by avoiding being vague and ambiguous.

The super maxim, which was hugely important to Grice was the element of politeness. People should be mindful of other's face needs and should be well mannered and respectful. By doing these things, you are keeping the person you are talking to happy as they feel respected.

Ferdinand de Saussure - Signs

Ferdinand de saussure was a semantic theorist who studied how signs are interpreted and the study of signals. There are two types of signs: the iconic and the symbolic signs. As well as this, Saussure suggested that there was a two part model of the sign that included a signifier and the signified.

Two types of signs definitions;

ICONIC - signs that directly show what they represent and that obtain their function in a similar way to what they signify. For example, a picture is an iconic sign as you can directly see what it is trying to represent.

SYMBOLIC - Usually through associations or words, symbolic signs are where the relationship between the signifier and signified are culturally specific.

The two part model of the sign consists of a signifier and the signified, this relationship between the two is know as ‘signification’.

A Signifier - The form in which a sign takes.

The signified - What concept it represents.

William Labov - Discourse structure

William Labov is a sociolinguist and theories who studied about discourse structures. Labov is famously known for his work of discourse structure, in addition to the work he done on language variation and change. One of his most important involvements in the discourse structure was that he made a model of the spoke narrative.

summary of the structural approach of the fundamental problems of discourse analysis -

A - Abstract; This is the indication that a narrative is about to start and that the reader wants the listeners attention before beginning.

O - Orientation; Setting the scene by providing additional contextual information. Such as who/what/where/when/why etc.

CA - Complicating Action; This is the main body that provides us with a range of narrative detail.

R - Resolution; The end of a narrative, the final events that give a closure.

E - Evaluation; Additions to the basic story that highlight attitudes and grabs the listener's attention at certain moments.

C - Coda; A sign the narrative is completed.

As well as this, Labov also studied different types of evaluations. This include internal, external, intensifying and explicative evaluations.     

Internal - These occur at the same time but are not usually a part of the series.

External - Not usually a part of the series and they are added by the narrator at the time.

Intensifying - Contribution via gestures.

Explicative - Providing reasons for narrative events.

Erving Goffman - Face needs

Erving Goffman was a sociologist who used the interactions of people to explain  society. Goffman wrote about face needs in conjunction to daily life. Goffman claims that as humans, we all appear to care about how other perceive us – we all create an image we want others to see which can change from situation to situation.  If someone ‘loses face’ then they have degraded their self-image. However, to maintain face, people are taking a line whilst in a social situation. (A line is the speech and actions which someone does during the interaction and how the person at hand understands the situation.) There are two different types of faces, a positive and negative face.

Positive - This is associated with feeling appreciated and valued.

Negative - This is the desire to feel independent and not imposed upon.

Brown and Levinson build upon this concept to explain Politeness – they believe that politeness is universal. This is known as a ‘super maxim’ in that people are aware of others personal/face needs in conversation.

Positive politeness addresses positive face concerns and Negative politeness addresses negative face concerns. When someone threatens another person's face, they are committing a face threatening act.

Deixis - These are words or phrases that can’t be understood without additional context.

Personal deixis - I/ME/YOU

Spatial deixis - Here, there, left, right

Temporal deixis - now, then, today, tomorrow.