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The Politics of Talk on Perceptions: The Case for Theatricality

Mounir TRIKI GRAD Research Unit on Discourse Analysis, FLSH, Sfax

Thesis Statement:

I wish to submit the following claims:

1 Perceptions are always mediated by reports

This is warranted by the observation of the following dichotomies:

The discipline The relevant conceptsnarratology point of of view vs narrative voice, focalisationpsychology public vs private selvessociology Appearance vs reality (theatricality vs habitus)pragmatics saying vs implying; saying vs doing; linguistic

meaning vs speaker’s intented meaning; overriding

contextcinematography dialogism: decentering self (I vs Me)critical theory no more certainties on meaning and interpretation

+ polyphony + heteroglossiahistoriography any historical account is necessarily mediatedmedia studies agenda setting and framing strategiesrhetoric Persuasion, manipulation, deceptionstylistics slippage; écart, deviationsemantics Literal vs metaphorical meanings; all types of

ambiguity; all types of presuppositionsFeminism Gendered discourse vs biological sex

What these concepts show is that what is presented need not be taken at its face

value.

2 These dichotomies are possible because the various signifying systems

(linguistic, social, semiotic) have made them possible.

The paper attempts to read into the assumptions of a variety of influential

theories. It seems that despite their divergences and the disparity of their frames

of reference, there is a common thread which they all share and which I have

labeled the Tricky Hypothesis. We can only play games if we are properly

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equipped to do so.

3 Goffman’s dramaturgical model and Bakhtin’s ventriloquating concept

advocating the theatricality of our verbal interactions are quite appealing if we

want good insights into the mechanisms of perception.

4 Reporting on our perceptions of ourselves and of others is always political in

the sense of being goal-oriented.

Structure of the Paper:

To defend these claims I shall review linguistic literature with a view to showing

first the linguistic potential for Fowler’s Healthy Scepticism. Then evidence shall

be drawn respectively from Psychology, Critical Discourse Analysis, Sociology,

Narratology, Historiography and Cinematography. The paper ends by making a

case for the Tricky Hypothesis and suggesting a checklist for a close reading of

discourse reporting perceptions.

1. The Linguistic Potential for a Questioning of Literality and Transparency:

I wish to argue that, by reconsidering the work of established linguists like

Guillaume, Jakobson, Benvéniste, Lyons and Halliday and then moving to

pragmatics and critical discourse analysis, I shall be advocating a view of

grammar as carrying the potential for acting in the sense of encoding the

speaker’s management of impressions.

1.1. The Input of Established Linguists:

Acting is defined in the dictionary as the art or practice of representing a

character on stage or before cameras. In terms of the Tricky Hypothesis, it is the

consciousness of self in one’s relation to others. It is the art of creating and giving

impressions about oneself and about one’s definition of the other’s standing with

respect to ego. French Enunciative/speaker-centred linguistics sets a high

premium on this dimension of acting by foregrounding the centrality of the

speaking subject and his/her discursive strategies. The key notions of deixis and

modality, so central to this frame of reference, hinge on the speaker’s shifting in

or shifting out strategies (Greimas and Courtes, 1982).

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The legacy of Guillaume and Benvéniste, markedly indebted to Jakobson, lends

itself to a new reading as viewed from the Tricky Hypothesis. In particular,

Jakobson's model (1956) of shifters defines them as a special class of verbal

categories necessitating reference to the speech event and/or to the participants in

the speech event. However, I have argued elsewhere (Triki, 1989) that not to refer

to the speech event or to its participants is a structural impossibility. In fact, as

Gustave Guillaume has put it (quoted in Joly 1981:545):

Tous les actes d'expression - sans exception aucune - sont affectifs vu que

tous ont pour objet d'agir sur l'interlocuteur, de l'affecter. Il n'est pas de

phrase qui ne soit affective.

Parret (1983) claims that speakers could be said to have an affective competence

"compétence passionnelle" that inevitably marks their discourse. Therefore, it is

very difficult, if not virtually impossible, to stop the erosive effect of the

categories of shifters. It will be argued, together with Guespin (1976), that there

is no clearly defined borderline between shifters and non-shifters. A large and

ever growing shady area lies in between. However, what could be deduced from

Jakobson's argument is that grammatical (and particularly verbal) categories shift

differently, or, better still, linguistic forms belong to different kinds of shifters

and lend themselves to different degrees of transparency. In brief, there are

tendencies either towards shifting in [embrayage] where the subjective presence

of the speaker is more readily apparent, if not foregrounded (as is the case with

deictic categories), or towards shifting out [débrayage] where the presence of the

speaker is less readily available and a disjunction of the utterance from

I/here/now onto what is not-I/not-here/not-now takes place (tendency towards

objectivity). To use the terminology of Greimas and Courtès (1982), the

subjectivising tendency will be called «engagement» whereas the objectivising

tendency will be called «disengagement».

Instead of Jakobson's sharp distinction between shifters and non-shifters, a scale

or cline of gradations could be envisaged with "total" engagement or

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disengagement at either extremity. The linguistic forms could then be assigned

degree-of-shifting values ranging from the most minimal to the most maximal.

Consequently, the dichotomy between "subjective" and "objective" utterances

does not operate at the enunciation level since, by its very definition, an utterance

is the result of a subjective act of appropriating a linguistic system by a speaker.

In so far as there is a speaker latent to any conceivable speech event, then every

utterance could be said to be subjective. What warrants the dichotomy on the

other hand is that there is in an utterance a number of clues giving the

impressions either of subjectivity or of objectivity (Morot-Sir, 1982:128).

In the discursivisation process (Gréimas and Courtès, 1982) the speaker inscribes

in the utterance either an engaging egocentric force or else a disengaging

objectivising force. Thus, the import of the categories enumerated by Jakobson is

that, when used in discourse, they either tend to give the impressions of

subjectivity or at least to prompt the reader to take into account their shifting

reference (Jakobson's shifters called here overt shifters) or on the contrary give

impressions of objectivity by suppressing overt reference to the speech event and

its participants (Jakobson's "non-shifters" called here covert shifters). It is

important to bear in mind the fact that the notions of subjectivity and objectivity

are relative and set into relief the very problematic of indeterminacy in borderline

cases.

It could be concluded thus that Jakobson's legacy has paved the way towards a

linguistics of enunciation where the speaking subject has a central place. The

problematic of shifters found a considerable boost in the work of Benvéniste on

linguistic subjectivity and the formal apparatus for enunciation (1965, 1966, 1970

in particular). The emptiness, but not meaninglessness, of these forms provides

the key feature of what is generally understood by shifters as construed in an

extended framework. Shifters are thus inexorably linked to the emergence of the

speaking subject within the utterance. It is because these empty forms lend

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themselves for appropriation by an individual speaker who by so doing

transforms what is conventional and codified into something personal and

idiosyncratic that they are called shifters. Hence, the study of shifters finds a

natural place as a vital integral part in the study of linguistic subjectivity

(Benvéniste, 1966:259-60). It is this process of appropriation of the linguistic

system by an individual speaker which defines the concept of enunciation. The

speaker by annexing for his own use the formal apparatus of a language

necessarily leaves traces of his presence as a speaker on the surface of his

utterance. The task of the linguist is thus to focus on the imprint (marks, traces,

cues, indices, clues...) of the process of enunciation in the utterance (Benvéniste,

1970:14; Kerbrat, 1980).

These cues are pervasive. Speech is so impregnated with subjective markers that

it is inconceivable to study its function without recourse to them (Bevéniste,

1966:261). The occurrence of such cues emanates from the relationship between

the speaker, the utterance and especially the other participants both in the speech

event and the narrated event. As Ducrot and Todorov (1981) have pointed out,

the presence of these cues in different degrees of intensity in every utterance is a

presence-indicator, revealing information on the speaking subject. It is from the

centrality of the speaker in his utterance that the linguistic indices of enunciation

stem (Benvéniste, 1970:14).

Expression is inseparable from expressivity (Joly, 1973, 1979, 1980,1995 ;

O’Kelly, 1995). That is, encoding a message is a complex process where

subjective elements infiltrate into the speaker's already culturally prestructured

initial project at different levels of the encoding process (Grèimas's

discursivisation process) so much so that the final product (the utterance) is a

necessarily modified version of an already subjective input (LeGoffic, 1980).

Consequently, the speaker is present everywhere in his utterance whether we as

addressees or overhearers perceive his presence as explicit or implicit.

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Every utterance is unique since it emanates from a unique enunciative act (Lyons,

1977:570). The importance of this feature is that it allows for the assumption that

every utterance (in its broad meaning of available product of a speech event,

whether oral or written) is reconstructable along the parameters of person, space

and time from which the affective parameter gradually comes into being. This

process of reconstruction by the reader will be called deictic contextualisation,

(Margolin, 1984), culminating in a complementary process which will be called

affective contextualisation.

In an unmarked canonical (Lyons, 1977:638) use of deixis, the speaker takes his

own ego as the deictic centre of the utterance. By equating the utterances's

deictic centre with his own latent deictic centre, the speaker embarks on an

engagement or shifting in process. However, under the influence of many

subjective factors not the least of which are the speaker's own discursive

strategies, speakers often resort to displaced uses of deixis where displacement is

conceived of, after Fowler (1986:89), as the capacity of human speech not only to

refer to things and events removed in space and time from the immediate context

of utterance but more importantly to use deictic tools to express affective ends.

When dealing with the concept of deictic anchorage (the categories of person,

place and time), Triki (1989, forthcoming) has shown that there is no one to one

correlation between the grammatical category of person and the objective reality

of people's gender and number out there in the world. Three major mediatory

factors are brought to bear. First, the ideology informing the social relations in

one given society necessarily colours the form chosen for reference to person.

Second, the speaker's own affective attitude towards the addressee(s) or

délocuté(s) operating on the parameters of proximity versus distance determine

many of the instances of displacement. Third, with a conscious manipulation of

forms pertaining to person, many subjective effects can be created. The major

effects emanate from the speaker's apparent engaging or disengaging orientation.

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At the level of space deixis, the centrality of physical and affective space in

human cognition must be emphasised. Deictic subjectivity is first and foremost

expressed in spatial terms. Ego is the sum total of deictic [i.e spatio-temporal]

location and affective [i.e attitudinal] force. Proximity to ego or distance from it

provides the underlying mechanism for all other affective effects. Affective

proximity or distance is expressed in spatial terms. However, when there is a

clash between the spatial and the affective parameters, affective considerations

take priority. The shifting identity of the speaker is a major source of deictic

ambiguity in egocentric space. The determining role of affectivity is another

source of ambiguity, called attitudinal ambiguity.

As to temporal deixis, three main points should be made. First, there is no one to

one correlation between the linguistic apparatus for time and real cosmic time.

Language embodies our perception of time rather than time per se. Second, the

mediatory impact of the speaker's perception of time on the selection of the

appropriate linguistic forms could be traced on two levels. At the deictic level,

there is the problem of the shifting identity of the deictic centre and how it relates

to ego. At the affective level, the speaker's modal attitude to the events tends to

override temporal requirements. Third, the speaker's mediation may result in two

tendencies allowing for various gradations in between, namely a subjectivising

phenomenal orientation or an objectivising "structural" perspective (Triki, 1989).

Similarly, with demonstratives, affective parameters are expressed in basic deictic

terms of proximity versus distance. However, when both deictic and affective

considerations are brought to bear in the choice of demonstratives, the affective

considerations take priority. Besides, determiners and intensifiers have strong

affinities with deixis and modality. Their determination of the nouns, adjectives,

and adverbs inscribes within the utterance the speaker's subjectivity.

The dependence of the choice of deixis on affective factors, on various

displacements, and especially on the potential multiplicity of deictic, perceptual

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and affective centres inevitably causes deictic expressions to be opaque and

relative in their reference. There are two main sources of ambiguity. First, it has

to be ascertained whether the use of deixis is canonical or displaced. If it is

displaced, what effect does this displacement produce? What information does it

convey on the speaker's attitude? Second, to which deictic and/or perceptual

and/or affective centre are these forms attached? It is important to attribute them

to their right centres.

As for the concept of modal anchorage, construed here in an extended framework

(Hoey, 1997), modality in its various forms [whether canonical or oblique] seems

to be a constitutive ingredient of every utterance since it embodies the speaker's

attitude towards the message (in the case of epistemic and evaluative modalities)

and the addressee (for deontic modality).

First, in terms of epistemic modality, the speaker can show neutrality,

endorsement, or rejection of the reported propositions, whether this modal

commitment or lack of commitment is genuine or strategic. Second, in terms of

deontic modality, the speaker can express different social attitudes ranging from

the strongest degrees of obligation down to a mere permission. The

appropriateness of these forms to the real power relationship between the

participants in the speech event is something to be negotiated between them and

belongs thus to what Halliday (1985) calls «modulation» as opposed to modality.

Third, in terms of affective modality, the speaker can pass on different value

judgements on the proposition be they flattering or derogatory. The voicing of

these judgments can show a genuine attitude or can be strategic.

1.2 The Input of Pragmatics: Language Use as Social Action:

Another meaning of the word “acting” takes meaning assignments as social

behaviour, where speakers do something to affect their interlocutors one way or

another. As (Tymoczko, 1978, 32-33) has put:

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Our sophisticated verbal interchanges produce dramatic effects on our

behaviour and on our material environemt. If there is meaning to these verbal

interchanges, and if a meaning assignment can represent it, then the meaning

assignment must function in the overall behaviour patterns of language users.

Pragmatics has looked at this aspect of human interaction through language. Our

theory of what a language means is dependent upon our theory of what the

language users are doing with their language (Tymoczko, 1978, 38).

In line with Yu’s (2005) argument, a better understanding of cross-cultural

variation could be obtained by linking ways of speaking to broader patterns of

social and cultural organization. In addition to political belief, cultural norms

play an important role in determining language behaviour.

1.2.1 Saying vs Implying:

Grice is interested in the discrepancy between the “said meaning” of an utterance

(its sense), and its “implicated meaning” (or pragmatic force). His Cooperative

Principle instructs language users to make their conversational contribution such

as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction

of the talk exchange in which they are engaged. Speakers are required to obey

this principle through observance of a number of social maxims which vary in

importance in different social contexts. If they flout one or more of these maxims

they can convey various types of meaning in addition to the literal meaning of the

utterance, known as conversational implicatures. Such extra meanings can be

worked out by measuring the said meaning against the features of context.

However, there are a number of complications to the picture. Maxims often

conflict with one another so that some maxims are observed at the expense of

other maxims. Under contextual constraints some maxims will simply override

other maxims. In fact, as Leech (1983) has cogently pointed out, all the Gricean

maxims can be overridden by social maxims of politeness.

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Implicatures show how the three meanings of acting are at stake. By choosing to

flout the maxims whilst observing the cooperative principle, speakers are acting

in the first sense of deliberately giving the false impression of flouting them.

Their ploy is recognised as such because co-operation on the part of the hearers

requires their participation in the socially coded game of going through certain

motions (second sense of acting). Finally, this game is not innocent, it has its

intended effect (hence acting in the third sense).

1.2.2 Types of Meaning:

Pragmatics capitalises on the interaction between the various types of meaning

(Triki and Atari, 1993). Meaning assignments are relatively indeterminate and

expressed in contexts (Green, 1989; Tymoczko, 1978, 33-38). But, most

importantly, meaning assignments are relative to the speakers’ beliefs,

(Tymoczko, 1978, 39-41). The relativising of meaning assignments to speakers’

beliefs, perceptions and rhetorical plans could be accounted for in terms of the

three types of acting propounded in the Tricky Hypothesis. The lack of match

between the propositional meaning and the other types of meaning is due to

acting in the first sense of manipulating impressions. The fact that this

manoeuvring does not hinder communication and is often detected by hearers is

due to the second meaning of acting (as joining in a social game). The centrality

of intentionality sets the third dynamic sense of acting into relief.

1.2.3 Politeness Strategies

Politeness and face are among the central concerns of Ethnomethodology and

Pragmatics (Bates, 1976; Brown and Levinson, 1987; Lakoff, 1973 and 1977;

Leech, 1980). Whenever people engage in social interaction, these two concepts

are called into play. It so happens that many of the constraints on appropriate

formulae for given contexts are amenable to Politeness maxims that must be

observed. Many of the cases of misfiring of speech acts and discrepancies

between illocutionary acts and perlocutionary effects are in essence due to

flouting politeness maxims.

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Pragmatic research has shown that the principles governing conversation can be

extended beyond Grice’s Cooperative Principle by the addition of maxims of

politeness. For instance, Leech, (1980: 13) labels one of these maxims the Tact

Maxim which can be summed up in the injunction “Do not cause offense”1. It is

argued here that the determining factor in the selection of politeness formulae is

evaluative modality. The speaker inscribes in the utterance his or her point of

view through the smuggling of evaluation by means of these modals. Research

following Halliday’s legacy has systematically drawn attention to the various

modalities whereby speakers market bad or undesirable news (Fowler et al, 1979;

Kress and Hodge, 1979).

As Green (1989: 142) has put it:

As with many politeness techniques, the speaker is really only going through

the motions of offering options or showing respect for the addressee’s feelings.

The offer may be facade, the options nonviable, and the respect a sham. It is

1 In his turn, Leech (1983:page?) had another attempt at characterizing further universals. He formulated six politeness maxims as follows:

1. TACT MAXIM

a. minimize cost to other

b. maximize benefit to other

2. GENEROSITY MAXIM

a. minimize benefit to self

b. maximize cost to self

3. APPROBATION MAXIM

a. minimize dispraise of other

b. maximize praise of other

4. MODESTY MAXIM

a. minimize praise of self

b. maximize dispraise of self

5. AGREEMENT MAXIM

a. minimize disagreement between self and other

b. maximize agreement between self and other

6. SYMPATHY MAXIM

a. minimize antipathy between self and other

b. maximize sympathy between self and other.

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the fact that an effort was made to go through the motions at all that makes the

act an act of politeness.

In order to be polite speakers have to uphold pretences and keep up appearances.

In so doing they call into play the three dimensions of acting.

Moreover, pragmatic failure is not only caused by the speaker’s intended desire

to push the hearer for further interpretations. It is rather the imperative result of

differences in cultures or even differences between speech communities in their

assessment of the speaker's and hearer's social distance and social power, their

rights and obligations, and the degree of imposition involved in particular

communicative acts (Blum-Kulka and House 1989; Olshtain 1989; Takahashi

and Beebe 1993). Moreover, Fraser (1990) states in his 'conversational contract’

that the values of context factors are negotiable; they can change through the

dynamics of conversational interaction.

It is posited in research on politeness that people belonging to all cultures of the

world project a public "face" defined as a sense of positive identity and public

self-esteem (Goffman, 1981; 1983, 1986). When engaged in social interactions,

individuals strive to show that they have a number of virtues such as intelligence,

competence and dignity. At a time when face is incessantly ventured by

individuals, it is equally treated, handled or upheld by others. In verbal

interaction, our interlocutors continually engage in maintaining, protecting and

validating our public front (Morand, 1996). Following Goffman’s insights, it

could be argued that human interaction is essentially theatrical since individuals

work hard to engineer performances, while supporting one another in the joint

staging of performances (See the Tricky Hypothesis in Triki 2002 and Triki and

Sellami-Baklouti 2002).

However, this same interaction is beset with hazards since some events occurring

in the course of this interlocution might generate interpersonal tension or

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conflict. For instance, when we are subjected to criticism, disagreement,

instructions, rejections, embarrassments, our face may be threatened. However,

as Morand (1996) has put it, the manifold rules, norms, and conventions that

govern the generation of meaning in face-to-face encounter are often employed

in an automatic, unthinking fashion. Yet, in view of the tight nexus between

these rules and people’s sense of physical and psychological identity, their

violation can be extremely disorienting (Morand, 1996).

To remedy these possible hazards, people resort to a set of linguistic strategies,

or "politeness behaviours" in order to mitigate or defray interpersonal conflict

(Brown and Levinson, 1987). Thus, "linguistic indirection." consists in the

choice of a set of mitigated linguistic constructions that could be classified on a

single continuum ranging from very indirect to very direct and brusque (Morand

1996; Thomas 1996). Despite the common occurrence of such linguistic

behaviours, they remain vital constituents of social interaction as they mediate

friction and help establish cooperation and rapport. It becomes obvious in this

line of thinking that social interaction calls for continuous and fine-tuned

adjustment to nuances of social consideration in others (Leech 1983; Morand

1996). Yet, a word of caution is necessary. For one thing, the calibration of the

right dose of directness to the prevailing social norms is important (Meye 2000).

Moreover, the norms for the “right” degree of (in)directness vary from one

culture to another (Blum-Kulka 1982; Weirzbicka 1991). To this effect, Goffman

cautions against the mishandling or use of inappropriate amounts of politeness

resulting from membership in a different culture as they can result in a grave

affront, hurt feelings, even spoiled identity. While the pitfalls of using too little

politeness are obvious, the employment of excessive degrees of politeness proves

no solution to the problem of cross-cultural miscommunication, for the

ambiguity inherent in polite, indirect expressions itself gives rise to serious

communicative distortion and misunderstanding (Morand, 1996).

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What is of relevance to the present paper is the fact that there are no a priori,

universal rules for how much mitigation is necessary in a given situation, as

anthropologists argue that the amount of mitigation, or indirection, which is

considered "satisfactory" or normative in a culture can vary. Politeness

behaviours are highly choreographed, to use Morand’s (1996) wording,

according to the distinctive standards of each culture. Consequently, serious

problems are expected to arise when individuals employ discrepant "rules of

engagement" for the employment of politeness in face-to-face interchange. As is

well perceived by Morand (1996), some cultures exhibit a tendency for

indirectness and politeness whilst other cultures tend toward overall brusqueness

in speech. Given the critical role of politeness in mitigating interpersonal

friction, and in sustaining others' face, cross-cultural mismatches in norms for

politeness utilization can cause severe problems.

1.2.4 Saying vs Doing:

This distinction between Locution vs Illocution vs Perlocution is owed to (Searle,

1975; 1979). Important lessons could be drawn from this distinction. Texts do not

simply say but, by saying, they perform social acts. This means that the language

used in real life is a loaded weapon giving speakers power to effect changes in

their immediate environment but, at the same time, this weapon can backfire if

mishandled. What one intends is methodologically distinct from what is actually

understood; discrepancies should be expected between locution (said or literal

meaning) and illocution (intended meaning) on the one hand and between these

two and perlocution (actual meaning as received by the addressee) on the other.

The connections between these utterance acts are norm-and context-governed.

However, as is bound to happen whenever people deal with other people, possible

discrepancies may take place between the standardized illocutionary force and the

degree of its appropriateness to a given speech event. The speech acts can misfire,

leading to different Perlocutionary effects. The possibility of such mismatch has

already been foreshadowed by Halliday (1985).

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In terms of the Tricky Hypothesis, acting in the first sense obtains in the intricate

relationship and essential non-correlation between these three acts. The second

meaning of acting stems from the fact that the movement from one act to another

is only possible because people happen to share the tacit social codes governing

this complex transition. Finally, the potential discrepancy between illocution and

perlocution necessarily entails the third meaning of acting.

Pragmatics literature classifies speech acts according to the degree of their

explicitness or directness (Austin, 1962 ; Searle, 1969). Accordingly, direct

speech acts are those acts where the utterance explicitly abides by its felicity

conditions (especially the structural ones) whereas indirect acts rely more on

context in order to reconstruct the underlying speech act performed. Thus speech

acts could be placed on a continuum ranging from the most direct down to the

least direct act which may even be confused with a normal constative utterance.

In terms of the Tricky Hypothesis, the vexed question of the hazy borderline

between constatives and performatives shows clearly that people tend to perform

various speech acts whilst apparently denying that they are doing so. The trick

lies in leading the hearer through the literal interpretation of the utterance to

believe that one act is being performed whilst passing on implicitly and obliquely

other acts. The whole debate generated by the nature of speech acts hinges upon

the intricate relationship between what an utterance says versus what it does

(hence the first sense of acting), whether speech acts are predictable or

idiosyncratic (hence the second sense of acting) and measuring their effects or

uptake (the third sense of acting).

1.2.5 Leech’s Goal-Oriented Model of Discourse and Green’s Plan Theory

Green (1989) argues that for communication to be successful, the hearer/reader

must be able to recognize the speaker's intentions. These are fulfilled or carried

out by means of a plan. Each plan consists of an ultimate goal and a number of

mediating goals. Understanding a speaker's intention in saying what he said in

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the manner he said it is tantamount to inferring the speaker's plan. The movement

from mediating to ultimate goals involves a great deal of acting in the sense of

manoeuvring and manipulating.

Similarly, Leech’s (1983) typology of goals into dynamic versus regulative,

subordinate versus supra-ordinate, long-term versus short-term, and major versus

minor goals corroborates this acting dimension. His perception of the possibility

of co-existing goals which could be in different degrees of harmony, competition

or conflict also shows how acts could be performed by means of other acts.

1.3. CDA and Media Studies:

1.3.1 Work on intertextuality:

Following Bakhtin’s legacy, CDA puts special emphasis on intertextuality (Allen

2001). Allusion is one major realisation of this function. According to Lennon

(2004) the main characteristic of allusion is the existence of an 'echo' between

one unit of language in praesentia (the alluding unit) and another unit in absentia

(the target). Thus, this device has a primary reference to the present text and a

secondary reference to an absent text. Owing to this property, allusion yields a

double meaning: "a primary, textual meaning in accord with the context and co-

text of the manifest text, and a secondary associational meaning, suggested by the

remembered context and co-text of the source text" (p. 5). As such, it is a cover

term for a number of language-use phenomena which cannot be described solely

with regard to their form. They must also be described with respect to their

pragmatic and functional characteristics.

1.3.2 Agenda Setting and Framing Strategies:

Triki and Mallouli (2009)

1.3.3 Fairclough’s Model

1.4 Cognitive Approaches

There has been an increasingly growing body of research on the ideological

manipulation of metaphors for political reasons reviewed in (Maalej, 1997),

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following the pioneering work of Lakoff and Johnson (1980). The

metaphorisation processes uncovered in Cognitive Stylistics show how dominant

ideologies justify existing practices and values. Their implicitness serves as a

convenient means of smuggling these values and evaluations without being

noticed or questioned. The trick lies in not appearing to say anything directly but

in having a doublespeak strategy, with one message taken at its propositional

value and another working at the basic metaphorical level.

1.5 Synthesis of the linguistics of Acting:

To sum up, an attempt has been made to show that the tenor of the contribution of

linguistics lies in capitalising on the intricate and complex relations between

intention at the enunciating/«enonciation» level and impression at the

«énonce»/utterance level. There simply is no one-to- one correlation between

these two levels of analysis. In terms of the Tricky Hypothesis propounded here,

this orientation in linguistic thinking takes enunciating as acting in the sense of

the art of creating and giving impressions. In other words, within this framework,

enunciating means manipulating impressions and strategically laying them on the

surface of the utterance.

2 Evidence from Psycholoy:

Research on Identity has shown how complex the notion of self can be. The best

illustration of this complexity is what is referred to in the literature as the Johari

Window devised by two men called Joseph and Harry. It is a useful way of

understanding something of how our self may be divided into four parts that we

and others may or may not see.

The Basic Johari Window

Below is a diagram of the standard Johari Window, showing the four different

selves and how the awareness or otherwise of these aspects of our self by others

and ourselves leads to these four categories.

I

What you see in

me

What you do not see

in me

What I see in me The Public SelfThe Private (or

hidden) Self

What I do not see

in meThe Blind Self

The Undiscovered

Self

The Public Self

The Public Self is the part of ourselves that we are happy to share with others and

discuss openly. Thus you and I both see and can talk openly about this 'me' and

gain a common view of who I am in this element.

The Private Self

There are often parts of our selves that are too private to share with others. We hide

these away and refuse to discuss them with other people or even expose them in

any way. Private elements may be embarrassing or shameful in some way. They

may also be fearful or seek to avoid being discussed for reasons of vulnerability.

Between the public and private selves, there are partly private, partly public aspects

of our selves that we are prepared to share only with trusted others.

The Blind Self

We often assume that the public and private selves are all that we are. However, the

views that others have of us may be different from those we have of ourselves. For

example people who consider themselves as intelligent may be viewed as arrogant

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and socially ignorant by others. Our blind self may remain blind because others

will not discuss this part of us for a range of reasons. Perhaps they realize that we

would be unable to accept what they see. Perhaps they have tried to discuss this and

we have been so blind that we assume their views are invalid. They may also

withhold this information as it gives them power over us.

The Undiscovered Self

Finally, the fourth self is one which neither us or nor other people see. This

undiscovered self may include both good and bad things that may remain forever

undiscovered or may one day be discovered, entering the private, blind or maybe

even public selves. Between the Blind and Undiscovered Selves, are partly hidden

selves that only some people see. Psychologists and those who are more empathic,

for example, may well see more than the average person.

Four personas

Associated with the Johari Window, we can define four different personas, based

on the largest 'self'.

The Open Persona

Someone with an open persona is both very self-aware (with a small blind self) and

is quite happy to expose their self to others (a small private self). The Open person

is usually the most 'together' and relaxed of the personas. They are so comfortable

with themselves they are not ashamed or troubled with the notion of other people

seeing themselves are they really are. With a small Blind Self, they make less

social errors and cause less embarrassment. They are also in a more powerful

position in negotiations, where they have fewer weaknesses to be exploited.

Becoming an Open Persona usually takes people much time and effort, unless they

were blessed with a wonderful childhood and grew up well-adjusted from the

beginning. It can require courage to accept others’ honest views and also to share

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your deeper self and plumb the depths of the undiscovered self. The weaker side of

the Open Persona is where they understand and share themselves, but do not

understand others. They may thus dump embarrassing information from their

Private Selves onto others who are not ready to accept it.

The Naive Persona

The Naive person has a large Blind Self that others can see. They thus may make

significant social gaffes and not even realize what they have done or how others see

them. They hide little about themselves and are typically considered as harmless by

others, who either treat them in kind and perhaps patronizing ways (that go

unnoticed) or take unkind advantage of their naivety. The Naive Persona may also

be something of a bull in a china shop, for example using aggression without

realizing the damage that it does, and can thus be disliked or feared. They may also

wear their heart on their sleeves and lack the emotional intelligence to see how

others see them.

The Secret Persona

When a person has a large Private Self, they may appear distant and secretive to

others. They talk little about themselves and may spend a significant amount of

time ensconced in their own private world. In conversations they say little and, as a

result, may not pay a great deal of attention to others. Having a smaller Blind Self

(often because they give little away), the Secret Persona may well be aware of their

introverted tendencies, but are seldom troubled about this. Where they are troubled,

their introversion is often as a result of personal traumas that have led them to

retreat from the world.

The Mysterious Persona

Sometimes people are a mystery to themselves as well as to other people. They act

in strange ways and do not notice it. They may be very solitary, yet not introverted.

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As the Mysterious Persona knows relatively little about themselves, they may be of

low intelligence, not being able to relate either to themselves or to others. They

may also just prefer to live in the moment, taking each day as it comes and not

seeking self-awareness. Some forms of esoteric self-developments seek to rid

oneself of concerns about the self in order to achieve a higher state of being. They

may deliberately enter states of non-thinking and revel in such intuitive paradoxes

as knowing through not knowing.

3 Evidence from Sociology & Ethnomethodology:

3.1. Goffman’s Concept of the Self:

Goffman wants to show how even the most innocuous or apparently authentic of

our social acts can be calculated to show the actor to his or her audience in a

favorable light.

Source: Gouldner (1970):

Goffman's is a sociology of "co-presence," of what happens when people are in

one another's presence. It is a social theory that dwells upon the episodic and sees

life only as it is lived in a narrow interpersonal circumference, a-historical and

non-institutional, an existence beyond history and society, and one which comes

alive only in the fluid, transient "encounter."

There is communicated a sense of the precariousness of the world and, at the

same time, of zest in managing oneself in it. Rather than conceiving of activities

as a set of interlocking functions, Goffman's dramaturgical model advances a

view in which social Life is systematically regarded as an elaborate form of

drama and in which-as in the theater-men are all striving to project a convincing

image of self to others. Here men are not viewed as trying to do something but as

trying to be something.

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Goffman thus declares a moratorium on the conventional distinction between

make-believe and reality, or between the cynical and the sincere. Human conduct

is seen as essentially concerned with fostering and maintaining a specific

conception of self before others. The outcome of this effort, moreover, is not seen

as depending on what men "really" do in the world, on their social functions, or

on their worth, but on their ability skillfully to mobilize convincing props,

settings, fronts, or manner.

Problems with Goffman’s framework: Source: Gouldner (1970):

In modern and large-scale organizations, the management of impressions is a

strategy of survival more likely to be emphasized by persons whose assumptions

remain individualistic and competitive, but who are now dependent upon large-

scale organizations.

In short, the moral code shaping social relationships has become less fully

internalized in them; while remaining a fact of social reality, it tends to become a

set of instrumentally manageable "rules of the game" rather than deeply felt

moral obligations.;;;For Goffman, what counts is not whether men are moral but

whether they seem moral to others; it is not morality as a deeply internalized

feeling of duty or obligation that holds things together, in Goffman's view, but

rather as conventional rules required to sustain interaction and treated much as

men do the rules of a game. As performers we are merchants of morality.

Dramaturgy reaches into and expresses the nature of the self as pure commodity,

utterly devoid of any necessary use-value: it is the sociology of soul-selling.

Goffman's sociology corresponds to the new exigencies of a middle class whose

faith in both utility and morality has been gravely undermined. … Once

established hierarchies of value and worth are shaken, the sacred and profane are

now mingled in grotesque juxtapositions. The new middle class seeks to cope

with the attenuation of its conventional standards of utility and morality by

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retreating from both and by seeking to fix its perspective in aesthetic standards, in

the appearances of things.

3.2. Bourdieu’s Concept of Habitus:

Source: St. Clair et al (2005) Habitus and Communication Theory

Social Habitus

What Bourdieu (1993, 1984, 1977) wants to do is to create a theory

based on practice…. He wants to account for a grammar of

practice. His books are an outline of that theory (Bourdieu, 1977).

Cultural Fields and Cultural Capital:

There are many cultural fields in society. Science, for example, is a culture;

literature is another. Each field has its own games. It has its own rules and has

its own challenges. Hence, different fields involve different games. They have

different interests about what is at stake. Being successful in a field is important

because it provides an individual with cultural capital…One is rewarded for

success in many ways. ..Hence, prestige and status are important forms of

cultural capital. Only those who have cultural capital can play the games in their

cultural field. The accumulation of wealth alone will not enable a person to play

the game unless that capital was the result of playing the game successfully

within a cultural field.

Social Script Theory (St. Clair, Williams, and Su, 2005).

The significance of social frames and how they constitute episodic

interactions is a major area of investigation by St. Clair (2005). It is

argued that humans interact in terms of social recipes, scenarios, and

frames and this insight is the basis upon which they are developing a

cognitive model of social theory. What this social script outlines is

the fact that human behaviour is structured and that routines can be

further articulated into subsections. The tacit knowledge of the

restaurant scene provides the Habitus for the social script of dining

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out. Events occur within an ordered sequence. The players in this

scene have roles to follow and those that work in the restaurant also

have their roles. What is important about social scripts is that

everyone in the restaurant knows the script of the customer. They all

perform it tacitly or even consciously, but they know that a script

occurs.

4 Evidence from Narratology:

This section is based on a series of earlier publications of mine (Triki, 1989,

1991, 2002; Triki and Bahloul 2001; Triki and Sellami-Baklouti 2002). The tenor

of this contribution is that, in congruence with Collins (2001), reporting is

anchored in the two pragmatic factors of intention (a term carefully defined so as

to account for even subconscious orientations) and perception. Reports are

constructs; i.e. they are mediated by mental representations both at the production

and reception poles and only obliquely relate to the represented speech event.

They are inherently mediated by and subordinated to the will and illocutionary

goals of the enframing discourse producer. This mediation informs both the form

and content of what is to be reported. The varieties of RS present a continuum

with indeterminate boundaries between the individual types and with many

instances of deliberate slippage from one form to another.

The phenomenon of reporting is much more complex than could be explained by

pure structural rules. There must be other important discursive and pragmatic

factors at work. Reporting is construed as an act of mediation involving a

confrontation of two selves, namely the reporting self and the reported self. The

speaker's perception of the reported person's deictic anchorage as viewed against

his/hers and of the reported person's modal investment as against his/hers will be

taken to be among the most important considerations. This selection necessarily

reveals the reporter's value judgements and his/her rhetorical strategies. No

reporting is innocent or value-free. 'Objective' reporting is simply an impression

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consciously given out by speakers as part of their self image building rhetorical

strategy.

Reporting is a discourse act in its own right seeking to influence targeted

addressees one way or another. By means of reporting and smuggling evaluation,

the speaker hopes to achieve certain social ends that could be reconstructed from

the very act of reporting. Thus, the reporter's discursive strategy is an over-riding

factor which accounts for all sorts of apparent 'abnormalities' in reporting. The

superior intention of the reporter as an over-riding factor responsible for deciding

what and how much information to select and the narratorial mode of reporting it

must be acknowledged. This point was systematically argued by (Triki, 1989,

1991, 1998a, 1998b, 2000, 2001, forthcominga, forthcoming b; Triki and Bahloul

2001) to the effect that the various levels of embedding entail a functional

hierarchy of centres in the genesis of the narrative. A power relationship exists

between them. They are to be seen in terms of superiority versus inferiority,

control versus subservience. This in turn entails a whole spectrum of degrees of

interference exercised by the superior (super-ordinate) centre on the liberty of

expression of the subordinate centre leading thus to tension.

What is at stake is the Discourse Structure (Short 1996) of the reporting process:

who is represented as reporting what to whom about whom in which context and

for what purposes? Layering means that we have many SELVES competing for

expression (this is the essence of heteroglossia) (Triki, 1989, 1991, 1998a, 1998b,

2000, 2001, forthcominga, forthcoming b; Triki and Bahloul 2001). SELF is

realised in narrative in the form of a Deictic Centre, a Perceptual or Sentient

Centre, a Cognitive or Ideological Centre or any combination of these centres.

Reporting is an exercise of some degree of intervention by the reporter in the

speech and thought of the represented persons (including the reporter's own self

as part of the reported story). Measuring this degree of intervention is a complex

process since, if we take the three previously mentioned centres as constitutive of

SELF and the act of reporting as necessarily bringing about some confrontation

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of these SELVES, then the various possibilities for the interaction between the I-

sayer and the 'not-I' could be classified along a cline ranging from total

distinction to total overlap.

The complexity stems from the various possibilities potentially emanating from

this confrontation. Total or partial or nil overlap can be obtained at all, some

or none of any of these parameters. What adds to the complexity of this process is

the fact that deictic mediation (at the levels of person, place and time) can be

partial, that is limited to one or two of these co-ordinates. Similarly, at the level

of perception, not all the five senses are necessarily equally relevant all the time

in the narrator's report. Indeed, sometimes, the narrator can choose to remain

totally silent about perception. The same is true for cognitive/ideological

mediation which can be partial. The more complex the layering, the more Selves

compete for expression, the more complex the reporting process gets. A typology

of narratives should be based on all these possibilities emanating from this basic

mechanism.

The relevance of this review to the present paper is the due emphasis on the

theatrical and game-like nature of the whole process of reporting. According to

this view, all reporting techniques are make-belief strategies going through the

motion of giving calculated impressions of deference to the interpreter or

interference by the reporter. All strategies, whether they are speaker-based or

hearer-based, are calculated moves that are part and parcel of what Caffi and

Janney (1994) call emotive or strategic involvement.

5 Other Related work:

Research on the concepts of theatricality, dialogism, negative perceptions of self

is quite pertinent in this respect.

First, Anderson (????) traces the history and heritage of theatricality back to

classical Greek theatre, through Shakespeare, Horace and Seneca and Cervante

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till Modern sociology and communication science (Burns, 1972; Goffman,

1959,1981; Mangham and Overington, 1983; Riggens, 1993; Turner, 1982). He

outlines two conceptual approaches to theatricality linked to the idea of the world

as socially constructed: dramatism and dramaturgy. Dramatism illustrates the

world by showing it as a stage (Burns, 1992; Burke, 1972) and attempts to

provide a “Grammar of Motives” seeking to foster a sense of detached critical

awareness of social interaction (Boje, 2002), whilst dramaturgy demonstrates the

world as it is staged emphasising the world as stage and our roles as social

actors (Goffman, 1981). Each of us performs a range of roles. Goffman’s

categorisations of roles allow us to realise such things as audience complicity,

how they may conspire with the actor to sustain his role and even emphasise the

moral obligations of doing so (Welsh, 2002).

Second, Ruck & Slunecko (????) outline their notion of dialogism in the

following angles:

- Fragmentation of SELF: In a dialogical self, we do not find a single

centralized story-teller at work. DS theory retains James’ (1890) view of the

self as consisting of different constituents: I and Me. The I refers to the

reflexive parts of the self (the self as subject, knower, thinker, etc.),

whereas the Me is described as the sum of everything someone can be said

to own (the self as object, as known, thought, etc.). The dialogical self

amounts to a ‘narrative translation’ of James’ distinction. Each Me,

however, is endowed with a voice to tell its own story.

- Heterogeneity of SELF: Hermans and Kempen (1993) develop the conception

of the self as a multitude of different I-positions fluctuating within the imaginal

landscape of the mind (Hermans, 2001b), which is reminiscent of the Bakhtinian

(1929) concept of ventriloquation to the effect that individual speakers always

speak in the social languages of their time; thereby expressing the position of the

group they belong to.

- Culture and voice: Hermans, Kempen, and van Loon (1992) endorse the

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view that ‘Western’ culture, with its individualistic and rationalistic ideals of

selfhood, influences the entire organization of dialogical selves, restricting its

full potential and resulting in centralistically organized selves dominated by

one or few voices. The dominant conception of culture in DS theory today,

however, stresses the existence of self and culture as a “multiplicity of

positions among which dialogical relationships can develop.” (Hermans,

2001a, p. 243). In this conception, culture is a voice that may speak for

itself or speak through another position.

Third, research on the effect of negative perceptions of self on the consumer’s

behaviour shows other relevant dimensions. In fact, Buchanan-Oliver (????) has

recognized that consumption is more convoluted than a mere response to need,

want, or desire as people are also motivated by negative emotions (Bourdieu

1984; Miller 1997; Wilk 1997). It was those feared selves that were experience-

based that played a greater role in impacting consumers’ behaviour. Renamed

as the escaping self, to differentiate it from the conceptualised feared self,

experience-based feared selves appear more powerful as indicators of negative

consumption. Denoted by flights from both past and current selves considered

unfavourable or undesirable by the respondent, the escaping self differed from

that of a conceptual feared self because respondents became more involved in

its suppression. Furthermore, it appeared that the undesired other, or a negative

product-user stereotype, emitted the greatest influence on negative

consumption. Respondents commonly associated their avoided products with

negative images of the typical product-user. It was discovered that the negative

image of appearing as someone that they are not, or someone perceived to have

lesser qualities than themselves is, for these individuals, more fearful.

6 Synthesis: The Tricky Hypothesis:

In a series of publications, Triki (:::::::) has presented a generalisation of this

argument into a hypothesis about all human interaction that he labels the 'Tricky

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Hypothesis' to the effect that language use is a form of social acting. The pun on

the term 'social acting' capitalises on its three most important meanings. First,

acting is theatrically defined as the art of creating and giving impressions.

Second, acting could be construed in the sense of conforming to canonised social

or discursive norms where speakers and hearers are called upon to participate in a

coded game which has its rituals. Finally, acting is defined in terms of acting on

people; that is affecting their lives and beliefs. In terms of the Tricky Hypothesis,

each meaning of acting borrows the tools of the other meanings of the word.

Acting on people (sense 3) involves going through certain motions (sense 1)

according to pre-established rituals (sense 2).

Schematically, this hypothesis could be represented as follows:

The Tricky Hypothesis :

Four Maxims :

1. The Verbal Interaction as Game Maxim: Every act of verbal

interaction is part and parcel of a calculated game.

2. The Dissimulation Maxim: The game is realised through the

wearing of appropriate/convenient masks.

3. The relevance Maxim: This play on masks is governed by the

principle of relevance.

4. The Stakes Maxim: Relevance is relative to the stakes of verbal

interaction as perceived by the speaker engaged in a well defined

social context.First sense of acting:

management and

manipulation of

impressions

Second sense of

acting : a strategic

degree of observation

of some social rituals

Third sense of acting:

Acting on the other in

terms of performed

speech actsThe global effect: The complexity emanating from the interaction of

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different types of action

In particular, the following table enumerates the dramaturgical indices in a

hopefully useful checklist:

Proposed Checklist for dramaturgical indicesType of

Indices

Mode of realisation Relevant questions

Linguistic

Indices

Lexis - Whose value judgments are

expressed?

- Lexical presuppositions: what

aspects of reality do they take for

granted?

- Which genre is it appropriate

for?

- What degree of formality does it

presuppose?Grammar -

Logical

Indices

Indisputably true

algorhythms

Inclusion vs exclusion; generalisation;

causality; exception; contrastDiscursive

Indices

Frames Topic; FieldCoherence Relevance of premises to the initial

frameGeneric

Indices

The distinctive features

of any genre

- What are the presuppositions of

these features in terms of assumptions

and rituals stored in our collective

schemata?

-Contextual

Indices

Context of Utterance - Who is speaking to whom about

whom where and when?

- Which aspects of context are

available/salient?

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- Any paralinguistic features?Context of Reference Frames + distinctive features of any

genreContext of Culture Social roles; modes of address;

honorifics; social deixis; footingEncyclopedic Context Our state of knowledge

Dissimulation

Indices

For Persuasive purposes - How can argumentative

strategies enhance the position of the

speaker?

- How successful are these

strategies in impacting the addressee?

- How durable and effective is

this impact?For social action - Which speech acts have been

performed?

- How direct are these speech

acts?

- How canonical are these speech

acts?

- What social consequences do

they have?For the marketing of

SELF and the OTHER

- How is self marketed?

- How is the addressee marketed?

- How are the third parties

marketed?

- Any signs of glorification?

- Any signs of demonisation?

- Any signs of inclusion vs

exclusion?For politeness & face

considerationsFor deception purposes - Is there any malicious intent?

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- Are there any harmful

presuppositions?

- Any mystification strategies?

- Any signs of misrepresentation?Idiosyncratic

subconscious

The psychological

dimension

- Which facets of self are made

ostensible and which ones are hidden?

- Any indicators of proximity vs

distance?

- Any indicators of salience vs

marginalisation?

- Any desires or fears?

- Any indicators of identification

vs distance?Social

subconscious

The sociological

dimension

- How is footing managed?

- Which modes of address have

been used? How appropriate are they?

- How is power negotiated?

- How is social solidarity or

harmony achieved?

- How is conflict managed?Collective

subconscious

The ideological

dimension

- What constitutes a culture’s

ideology: Beliefs; stereotypes;

categorisations?

- Which rituals best embody &

exemplify that ideology?

- Whose interests are best served

by the observance of these rituals?

- How does discourse consecrate

or subvert existing states of affairs?