Diachronic function-to-form mapping

This approach compares the realization of specific speech functions (speech acts, politeness formulae, text types, forms of dialogue) at two or more specific points in the development of a language. Here the speech function is the tertium comparationis. Again it is possible, even likely, that not only the realization of specific functions changed in the course of language history but that the functions themselves changed.

To take the example of speech act theory, one might hypothesize that speakers of different languages realize apologies, requests, or compliments differently, and then analyze the differences in these realizations. In this case the illocutionary force of the speech act would be the tertium comparationis (cf. the cross-cultural speech act realization project, CCSARP, reported on in Blum-Kulka et ah 1989). However, declaring one's love is not the same for Sir Gawain and for a hip hop character in the 1990s. It is not only the linguistic (and non-linguistic) realization that is different, but in a fundamental sense Sir Gawain and the hip hop character are not really doing the same tiling (cf. Fritz this volume). Thus it is not clear that the illocutionary force is necessarily the best tertium comparationis, because different cultures, or one culture at two different points in history, may very well encode a different range of speaker intentions. Wierzbicka (1991) goes even further and advocates a kind of neo-Whorfianism, i.e. she believes that speech acts are so culture-specific that we cannot compare them across cultures.

For Stetter (1991: 74) speech act theory has no historical dimension, since it is impossible to grasp exactly what a speaker meant by his utterance. In his view, the historical description of linguistic phenomena cannot grasp the immediate situation-dependent subjective experiencing connected with speech acts unless the explicit performative becomes socially accepted (1991: 79).

To explain the use of speech acts in earlier periods, a thorough even though approximative analysis of all possible types of contextual factors, especially the conventions of language use in the period under investigation, is needed. Then it would not only be possible to elucidate what types of speech acts existed in former times and how they were expressed but also to identify the shifts in view of the socio-historical context. Thus, when performatives change their meaning, they express a different set of intentions and motives arising from changes in the socio-cultural environment (cf. Schlieben-Lange and Weydt 1979: 72).

In any case, the speech act is the pragmatic concept which has already gained most of the interest so far. In fact, speech act theory has often been proposed as the basis of any pragmatic description and as the main methodological tool in historical pragmatic analyses (cf. Weigand 1988: 160). Adding a historical dimension to speech act analysis means to focus on "the correlation of changes in the types of illocutions with changes in the society" (Stein 1985a: 350). For example, Cherubim (1980: 13) observes that in the wake of the secularization, the German verb fluchen 'to swear' shifted from an explicit performative act to an expressive act.

Most contrastive analyses of speech acts, however, are non-historical and across different modern languages. Theoretical debates have focused on the universal vs. conventional nature of speech acts. These debates can also be given a historical dimension. In Schlieben-Lange and Weydt (1976), for example, the universalist view represented by Weydt puts forward the hypothesis that speech acts are possible in any language, while Schlieben-Lange supports the non-universalist view that there are only culturally differentiated speech acts. More precisely, Schlieben-Lange (1976: 114) suggests that speech acts are not universal, but historically determined, differentiated and conventionalized. Hence a universal act of 'promising', for example, does not exist; there are only historical forms of 'promising'. A corollary of this thesis is the proposition that speech acts can only exist if they can be verbally identified, though not necessarily by an explicit performative (cf. Schlieben-Lange and Weydt 1979: 67).

In general, as expounded above, problems in connection with explaining the semantic change of linguistic items can be tackled more promisingly by adding a pragmatic dimension. In the context of her analysis of speech act verbs and declarations of intention in the historiography of the French Middle Ages, Schlieben-Lange (1983: 148-161) suggests that shifts in the designations of the author's activities are indicators of changes in the author's self-experience and the function of historiography.

For the historical study of speech acts Schlieben-Lange (1976) proposes to begin with the search of conspicuous speech-act-like phenomena and continue with the delimitation of the analysis to a specific aspect, e.g. speech act (adjacency) pairs. Schlieben-Lange's investigation is based on, first, dictionaries to find out about the kind of performative and speech act denoting verbs; second, texts to examine how speech acts are executed and accepted; and, third, the history of institutions and the law to illuminate the conditions and forms of speech acts under different social contexts. Yet Schlieben-Lange's tendency to almost exclusively reconstruct the function of a (historical) text from the (historical) text itself has drawn criticism, e.g. from Presch (1981: 224). In fact, he postulates that more independent historical data on the text's functional context needs to be included. A problem in this context is that the functional context of the text itself also has to be explained. In addition, Cherubim (1980: 12f.) suggests that more detailed analyses of speech acts, speech act sequences and/or speech act fields can also be obtained through a broader analysis of language-related references, such as grammars or style books.

For a historical pragmatician it would be interesting to localize the genesis of a particular speech act (cf Schlieben-Lange and Weydt 1979: 74). However, for lack of evidence this endeavor is difficult. In contrast, the explanation of why a speech act ceased to be used or has been replaced can take place against the background of shifting communication patterns or a changing value system (cf. Schlieben-Lange 1983: 141). The explanation of how a particular speech act developed entails the interpretation of present forms as the results of a process. The explanatory potential of a diachronic analysis is, of course, higher than that of a historical contrastive analysis. However, taking account of both the processual and the comparative perspective could prevent premature hypotheses on historical causes (cf. Presch 1981: 226f).

Arnovick (1994) notes the differences in promises between the straightforward and direct formulations reported in Anglo-Saxon poetry and today's formulations which seem to require a fair amount of additional verbal work in order to convince the promise of its sincerity. She explains the appearance of such pragmatically expanded promises in Present Day English on the basis of the semantic change of the modal auxiliaries shall and will.

Besides, a speech act analysis can also be carried out against the background of the pragma philological framework since the pragmatic basis for medieval texts and the particular conditions governing communication between author and audience connected with it are fundamentally different from those prevailing in modern times (Bergner 1992: 174).

In particular, the conditions governing communication are important factors for the fact that in the Middle Ages "the explicit, directly formulated illocutionary speech-act is often marked, and the performative verb is rather the rule than the exception" (Bergner 1992: 169). It may, however, be the case that this explicit speech act changes into an implicit speech act. The communicative status as an implicit speech act and thus the degree of conventionalization can be regarded as conditioned by history. Again, in order to understand a speaker's intention expressed in the speech act, it is important to know as precisely as possible the historical circumstances of the utterance. For example, in former times communicators used implicit speech acts to avoid the use of explicit speech acts that were morally unacceptable or taboo (cf. Hartmann 1977: 50).

Within the general outline of how to comprehend old texts, Schwarz et. al. (1988) ask how it is possible to determine a text's function and, again, the intention of the speaker/writer. In fact, as exemplified in the context of Reconstructing some speech acts in medieval Vuchs Reinhart (Schwarz et. ah 1988: 125-166), it is important to know what kind of action the text represents. Schwarz' (1984) pragmatic study of verbal courtship in medieval and modern Tristan poems is a more thorough historical speech act analysis presented as an example of 'speech act history'. The practical part investigates the speech act of declaring one's love by throwing light on questions about (1) the speaker's intention, (2) the situation, (3) the contents, (4) the manifestness, (5) the explicit performative and (6) the speech act's consequences.

Bax (1981, 1983 and 1991) investigates the speech event of verbal duelling as reported in medieval literary texts. Verbal duelling is a very widespread speech event. It has been described in many diverse societies, both historical and modern (for references see Bax 1991: 201-2 and list of references). Pragmatic analyses of the sequential structure of utterances in texts like the Old High German Hildebrandslied or the Old-Icelandic Harbardsljód can change the interpretation of the verbal interaction.

Gloning (1993) deals with historical texts containing passages with instructions or reflections on language use. His study also shows that address formulae were used according to a subtly differentiated system of conditional factors such as social rank, membership of the clergy, or domicile (town or countryside). Deviations from the norm were interpreted as a lack of deference and often answered by ill-humor or laughter. Furthermore, turn-taking rules included the requirement not to interrupt women while they talk. On the other hand, men had the right to give instructions to women, while women were not allowed to resist. Further research into texts containing reflections on language use is faced with a scarcity of reliable evidence, and again, it is difficult to determine whether the written evidence really reflects oral communication. Therefore, references have to be studied with a very critical eye.

Historical differences in aggressive verbal behavior such as swearing and insults can also be related to socio-cultural factors. In Lötscher's (1981) contrastive analysis of swearing and insults in the Swiss German of the 15th and 16th century, it emerges that today swearing and insults are less vulgar in terms of sexual and excretory language. In contrast, they are more differentiated and contain more allusions to physical and mental shortcomings. Religious and blasphemic features disappeared almost completely. As factors for this development especially the refinement of politeness rules and the process of secularization have to be considered.

Cultural and anthropological aspects also have to be taken into account for the analysis of discourse strategies such as 'arguing' (cf. Geier et al. 1977). In fact, there is sufficient written evidence to show that the art of arguing has a long history stretching from so-called 'primitive' societies up to modern times via Ancient Greece and scholasticism in the Middle Ages.

A text's conversational structure as such can throw light on whether the text is orally or textually conceived. In her analysis of the Nibelungenlied, for example, Weigand (1988) concludes that the work contains both oral and written features but does not represent language as spoken in the 12th century. The work's formulaic nature of conversational structure reflects a principle of oral composition or literary orality.

Some authors take text types as their starting point. Görlach (1992), for instance, traces the history of the cookery recipe. He claims that "its content and function are well defined, so we can assume identity over the centuries - an identity that is much harder to prove in many other types of text" (Görlach 1992: 736). He can show that there is relatively little development in the actual realization of cookery recipes over the centuries, and, at the same time, that this text type has not been standardized to the same extent as other text types have. The authors of cookery recipes still have a fair amount of freedom in the way they want to formulate a recipe. He is right, of course, to point out that the content and function of a particular text type may vary considerably over the centuries even if the name for the text type remains more or less the same.

Taavitsainen (1994a) traces the history of scientific writing from the late Middle English period to the Early Modern English period. Scientific writing is a fairly broad genre with many subgenres such as academic textbooks, lunaries, urinoscopies and remedy books. She concludes: Textual traditions, the audience parameter, and the macro-level of textual form are all important when assessing the evolution of early scientific texts. It is obvious that scientific texts of these periods may take various forms and deviate from one another greatly. Their evolution reflects the history of ideas, the scientific methods, and the linguistic and sociocultural conditions of the time (Taavitsainen 1994a: 341).

Fries (1986 and 1987) analyses German and English curricula vitae both contrastively and diachronically. He, too, delimits his text type on the basis of its content and its function because he concentrates on curricula vitae that appear in dissertations. He lists several structural elements of curricula vitae that are realized differently in modern German dissertations and in German dissertations written at the beginning of the 20th century, but he does not discuss potential differences in the function of this text type.

Text types, forms of dialogue, speech acts and politeness strategies all impose a functional perspective on historical pragmatics. The function is taken to be relatively stable, while the development of the actual linguistic realization is at the center of the researcher's interest.

Fritz (1993a) deals with aspects of a historical analysis of dialogue forms. Dialogues in present-day communication may take forms that are different from those in earlier periods. The standardization of dialogue forms, such as in address formulae or greetings, arises from institutionalization processes. Linguistically, the standardization is most evident on the levels of syntax and lexis. Apart from that, dialogues may also differ as to the topics treated. Topics are different in their distribution among specific groups, in their relative importance or in their social acceptance (e.g. sexuality or death). While some principles of communication are universal, like Grice's Cooperative Principle or the Principle of Relevance, others, such as taciturnity or politeness, depend on the historical peculiarities of life-style or institutions.

In his contribution to this volume Fritz uses particular types of dialogue as the basic units of analysis. As a first example he considers a type of dialogue in legal procedures, viz. the elementary sequence of accusation and response to an accusation. The second example are declarations of ones love. These reflections lead Fritz to draw up an agenda of work to be tackled by historical pragmatists, or historians of forms of dialogue, as he would call them. "Special purposes of dialogues call for specialized dialogue forms." (18).

Virtanen focuses her attention on discourse strategies in Early Modern English travelogues. In particular she looks at temporal and locative discourse strategies on the one hand, and on participant/topic-oriented discourse strategies on the other. These strategies may appear globally or locally, and it turns out that they are associated with specific text types.

The problems faced by contrastive analyses of politeness phenomena are no less serious. It is not only the linguistic realization of politeness that may differ between two speech communities (separated in space or time) but also what the two speech communities consider to be polite behavior. Can we compare the realization of politeness in English and in Japanese or are they so fundamentally different in their essence that a comparison is not possible?

Aspects of the history of politeness in language are dealt with in Watts et al. (1992: Part 1). Brown and Gilman (1989) applied Brown and Levinson's politeness theory to some of Shakespeare's tragedies. In particular, they checked the theory against the dimensions Distance, Power, and Extremity. They found that the dimension of Distance is strongly contradictory to the theory. In contrast to what the theory predicts, affect strongly influences politeness. The other two dimensions, Power and Extremity, however, were congruent with the theory, i.e. the person with less power is more polite, and the more extreme face threat is expressed more politely

The use of particular greeting formulae and greeting rules can also be closely linked to contextual aspects. Lebsanft (1988) shows how in the Old French period specific events, states of mind, location, sex, age, religion or status of the addressee had a considerable effect on the linguistic structure of greetings.

Kopytko (1993 a and this volume) analyses four tragedies and four comedies by Shakespeare, and he reaches the tentative conclusion that the interactional style of British society has developed from a predominantly positive politeness culture in which the expression of solidarity was paramount to a predominantly negative politeness culture with its stress on non-impositions.

Shakespeare's works were also analyzed with respect to the use of titles and address formulae (cf. Breuer 1983). Social rank and power, age, and sex were found to be important factors in the selection of the appropriate formula. Titles may be categorized into five groups: social honorary titles, titles expressing respect due to a difference in power (e.g. master, lady), habitual titles (e.g. neighbor, husband, child) including titles used in embarrassment (e.g. friend, gentle maiden), professional and official titles (e.g. captain), as well as family titles (e.g. father, sister). The use of first names was still rare in Shakespeare's time. Finkenstaedt (1963) exemplifies the use of address formulae in relation to the historical and social context by the English pronouns you and thou. His analysis reveals that in Old English the existence of only one pronoun, thou, can be explained by the lack of class differences. The plural use of you in Middle English was introduced because there was a need to distinguish two social ranks. Thus you indicated a higher and thou a lower social rank.

Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg (this volume) present a very comprehensive analysis of forms of address in letter salutations in Early Modern English. They trace these salutations from Late Middle English over a period of about two hundred and fifty years (1420-1680). They are thus able to present not only an historical but a truly diachronic analysis of address formulae. Their analysis pays close attention to the socio-historical context in which these letters were written both in general terms (i.e. concerning the social order, literacy and postal services in England at the time) and in more specific terms concentrating on the social distance between the letter writer and his or her addressee and their relative power over each other (i.e. Brown and Levinson's 1987: 76 parameters D and P).