Chapter 4 Data Analysis (1): Constructions of Agreement
2. Impacts of Hearer’s Gender on HA vs
4.3.7. Summary of 4.3
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4.3.7. Summary of 4.3.
This section summarizes major findings of agreement by degrees.
(1) For degrees of agreement in general, WOC is applied significantly more than WC.
For subtypes of WOC, upgrading agreement is more frequently used than preserving agreement.
(2) For the influence of gender in degrees of agreement, men and women show similarities on the preference of WOC, which is often significantly different from WC. And when upgrading and preserving degrees are compared, they both prefer to make upgrading agreements. When speaker’ gender only or hearer’s gender only is considered, gender is not an influential factor to manipulate people’s degrees of agreement. However, when both speaker’s and hearer’s genders are concerned, gender difference occurs. That is, significant differences are only found in the FF and FM groups. Furthermore, it is found that women are easily influenced by hearer’s gender on the comparisons between WOC vs. WC and upgrading vs. preserving degree. In same-sex conversation, women try harder to maximize agreement than they are in cross-sex conversation.
(3) When categories of agreement with degrees are considered, most of time, WOC is still significantly different from WC. And, upgrading degree is also applied significantly more than preserving degree.
(4) For the impact of gender in categories of agreement by degrees, major findings are listed below:
In HA by degrees, male speakers, besides upgrading HA, also frequently apply downgrading HA. By contrast, women rarely use downgrading HA.
Perhaps it is because that women put more emphasis on solidarity and harmony in verbal communication. And because partial agreement may be mistaken for
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disagreement and cause conflict, it is used less frequently by female speakers than by male speakers.
When HA and SM by degrees are compared, an interesting finding locates on the comparisons between FF and FM. For FF, WOC is used significantly more than WC in the usage of SM; whereas, for FM, WOC is used significantly more than WC in the usage of HA. It means that in same-sex conversations, women put emphasis on strengthening the degrees of SM, while in cross-sex conversations, women put emphasis on strengthening the degrees of HA.
When HA and HA+SM by degrees are compared, female speakers use WOC significantly more than WC no matter in HA or HA+SM. By contrast, no
significant difference is found in male speakers’ HA or HA+SM by degrees. It means that no matter HA with SM behind or not, women try to strengthen the agreement degrees of it.
(5) When six subcategories of agreement are considered, a different picture is revealed. Patterns of AM, EPC, and AM+EPC are similar to the pattern of agreement in general. That is, WOC is used significantly more than WC. And upgrading degree is used significantly more than preserving degree. However, the pattern of APC is different from other subcategories of agreement. Frequency of preserving APC is more than frequency of upgrading APC.
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Chapter 5
Data Analysis (2): Pragmatic Strategies in Agreement
This section presents how pragmatic strategies involve in each category and their subcategories of agreement, including: (1) Pragmatic Strategies in HA, (2) Pragmatic Strategies in SM, (3) Pragmatic Strategies in HA+SM, (4) Pragmatic Strategies in Subcategories of SM, and (5) Pragmatic Strategies in All Six subcategories of Agreement. Afterwards, as in the preceding chapters, the influence of gender on pragmatic strategies will be analyzed.
5.1. Amounts of Pragmatic Strategies in Agreement
This section shows the amount of pragmatic strategies found in agreement. In this study, pragmatic strategies are first divided into textual rhetoric strategies (TRS) and interpersonal rhetoric strategies (IRS). Under TRS and IRS, six subtypes of strategies are found in the collected data. But because the strategies “account” and
“clarification” found in the collected data are few, only emphasis, elaboration, supporting, and concession are discussed in the following sections.
5.1.1. Pragmatic Strategies in Agreement with Subjects as a Whole
Before pragmatic strategies are divided into different categories of agreement, this section discusses pragmatic strategies in agreement as a whole first. The distribution is revealed in Table 40. Following Table 40, related analyses and discussions are given.
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Table 40. Pragmatic strategies in agreement by subjects as a whole
(TRS= Textual Rhetoric Strategy; IRS= Interpersonal Rhetoric Strategy;
EMP= Emphasis; ELA=Elaboration; ACC=Account; CLAR=Clarification;
SUP=Supporting; CONC=Concession; *=P<.05)
Pragmatic strategies % (Frequency) P
TRS
Emphasis 60.9% (112) EMP:ELA=.003*
EMP:ACC=.000*
(1) When TRS and IRS are compared, significant difference occurs (P=.000). To be specific, TRS is performed significantly more frequently than IRS. In other words, when making agreement, pragmatic strategies are primarily used to meet the end of clearness and sufficiency of information but not interpersonal relationship.
(2) According to Table 40, for TRS, emphasis and elaboration are the strategies used mostly. It means that people often make agreement through strengthening what they are agreed with and making information of the discussed evaluation sufficient.
(3) Between emphasis and elaboration, emphasis is used mostly (60.9%), which is significantly different from elaboration (P= .003). It is because that emphasis is the strategy which can directly strengthen the illocutionary force of agreement.
Speakers may want to efficiently fulfill hearers’ positive face wants, namely, to be proved “right” in their evaluation, so that speakers apply emphasis to maximize the force of agreement.
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(4) Based on the results above, strategies in TRS can be classified into three groups:
In the priority order, “EMP” stands for emphasis, “ELA” stands for elaboration,
“ACC” stands for account, and “CLAR” stands for clarification. It means that people’s priority order of applying TRS in agreement is emphasis, followed by elaboration, and which in turn followed by account and clarification.
(5) For IRS, both supporting and concession are frequently applied, which are not significantly different from each other (P=.911).
5.1.2. Pragmatic Strategies in Agreement by Gender
This section presents the result on how gender influences pragmatic strategies in agreement, which is rarely examined in the previous studies of agreement (Pomerantz, 1984; Kotthoff, 1993; Kuo, 1994; Mulkay, 1985; Baym, 1996; Rattai, 2003). In the following sections of pragmatic strategies by gender, because account and
clarification are rarely applied, statistic test mainly focuses on the comparison between emphasis versus elaboration in TRS, and on the comparison between supporting and concession in IRS. In Table 41, pragmatic strategies in agreement by gender are presented with statistic results.
{ }
CLAR ACCEMP > ELA >
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Table 41. Pragmatic strategies in agreement by gender
(TRS=Textual Rhetoric Strategy; IRS= Interpersonal Rhetoric Strategy;
EMP= Emphasis; ELA=Elaboration; ACC=Account; CLAR=Clarification;
SUP=Supporting; CONC=Concession; Numbers in parentheses are frequencies; -=P>.05; *=P<.05)
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5.1.2.1. Pragmatic Strategies in Agreement by Speaker’s Gender
(1) For TRS and IRS by speaker’s gender, statistic results indicate that gender does not significantly influence the usage of any strategy. It means that men use every strategy as frequently as women do.
(2) But when gender by strategies are considered, statistic results indicate the only significant difference occurs on the comparison between male speakers’ emphasis and elaboration (P=.014). Emphasis is often realized by adding intensifiers to strengthen what people agree with. In other words, emphasis can be used to strengthen the force of agreement efficiently. By contrast, elaboration may take people much effort to perform it. And male speakers may think that when agreeing with others, efficiency of information exchange is important, so emphasis is used much more than elaboration by male speakers.
(3) Female speakers frequently apply both emphasis and elaboration, which without significant difference found. Based on the statistic results above, the priority orders of strategies in TRS for male and female speakers are listed below.
For male speakers:
For female speakers:
The priority orders show that for men, TRS can be grouped into three categories;
whereas, TRS can only be grouped into two categories for women. In other words, the priority order of TRS for male and female speakers is different on the order of
elaboration. The reason for women to frequently apply elaboration is probably
{ }
CLAR ACCEMP > ELA >
{ }
EMP >ELA
{ }
CLAR ACC‧
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because they think it is also a good way to make agreement by adding related information. In this way, female speakers show politeness because they cost selves more and benefit others who receive extra information, according to the Generosity Maxim and the Tact Maxim of Leech’s politeness principle (1983).
5.1.2.2. Pragmatic Strategy in Agreement by Hearer’s Gender
(1) The result of pragmatic strategies in agreement by hearer’s gender is in accordance with the result by speaker’s gender. When strategies by gender are compared, no significant differences are found in each use of TRS and IRS. It means that men receive every strategy as frequent as women do.
(2) However, when men and women by strategies are compared, significant differences emerges. Similar to the speaker’s perspective, emphasis and
elaboration by male hearers also show significantly difference (P=.027), but not those by female hearers (P=.077). Then, women’s account is significantly different from clarification (P=.049), but not those for men. Based on the statistic results above, the priority orders of TRS for male and female hearers are listed below.
For male hearers:
For female hearers:
The results above suggest that hearer’s gender is an influential factor on people’s performance of elaboration and account. When talking to male hearers, people mostly perform emphasis in agreement. But when talking to female hearers, besides the usage
{ }
CLAR ACCEMP > ELA >
{ }
EMP >ELA ACC > CLAR
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of emphasis, people’s priority order of elaboration and account is advanced. Therefore, gender is a factor influencing hearer’s receipt of TRS. In most cases, the strategies of elaboration and account are used to deal with insufficiency of information. When it comes to the Quantity Maxim in Cooperative Principle (Grice, 1975), it means that people may think female hearers’ upper bound of Quantity Maxim is higher than male hearers’. Female hearers may prefer to be agreed by the benefit of receiving extra information. Therefore, to fulfill female hearers’ positive face wants, people could make an agreement by extending more about the discussed referents.
5.1.2.3. Pragmatic Strategy in Agreement by Both Speaker’s and Hearer’s Gender
(1) For pragmatic strategies by four gender groups, statistic results indicate no significant differences are located in the usage of every strategy. In other words, when four gender groups are compared, no strategy is specifically performed by a certain group. Both speaker’s and hearer’s genders are not significant factors here.
(2) When different strategies are compared, the only significant difference is found between MF’s emphasis and elaboration (P=.016). It means that when talking to female hearers, male speakers rely on emphasis most of time. Emphasis, which is often realized by intensifiers, could be efficiently added in agreement without much effort. Thus, it can be inferred that when making agreement, when agreeing with female hearers, men put emphasis on the efficiency of expression.
5.2. Pragmatic Strategies in HA (Head Act Alone)
This section presents pragmatic strategies found in HA. After the discussion of pragmatic strategies in HA by subjects as a whole, the impacts of gender on it are examined.
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5.2.1. Pragmatic Strategies in HA by Subjects as a Whole
In this section, pragmatic strategies found in HA are presented. The statistic results are shown in Table 42 below. After the presentation of Table 42, related analyses are shown.
Table 42. Pragmatic strategies in head act alone
(TRS= Textual Rhetoric Strategy; IRS= Interpersonal Rhetoric Strategy; -=P>.05; *=P<.05)
(1) When TRS and IRS are compared, statistic test shows significant difference (P=.038). It means that when people make agreement by HA, they put more emphasis on making propositional content clear and sufficient, but not on maintaining interpersonal relationship.
(2) For TRS, only emphasis is used in HA. The results that only one strategy is applied in HA can be explained by HA’s nature—constructed by agreement marker only. Because the structure of the core of agreement is simple, strategies can be used here are correspondingly few. Another possible explanation is that HA is intentionally clear for agreement so that applying various pragmatic strategies is redundant.
Emphasis, which is often realized by intensifiers, is the strategy used to strengthen the force of agreement. In other words, when emphasis is used in HA, agreement not only become force-strengthened but also keeps structurally simple and intentionally direct. Hence, emphasis is the strategy used most in HA.
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(3) For IRS, even though with no significant difference found (P=.092), concession is much more frequently used than supporting. Additionally, most of concession is applied in HA (16 out of 26). In other words, concession is often performed directly and simply. Similar to what have been mentioned above, because people do not always agree with each other, concession is a necessary strategy to protect each other’s faces.
5.2.2. Pragmatic Strategies in HA by Gender
This section examines whether gender is as an important factor influencing pragmatic strategies in HA. Because no elaboration, account, and clarification are found in HA, only emphasis, supporting, and concession are listed in Table 43 below.
In the following discussion, because patterns by speaker’s gender alone, by hearer’s gender alone, and by both speaker’s and hearer’s genders are similar, tables are combined and results are analyzed together.
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Table 43. Pragmatic strategies in head act alone by speaker’s gender
(TRS= Textual Rhetoric Strategy; IRS=Interpersonal Rhetoric Strategy;
EMP= Emphasis; ELA=Elaboration; ACC=Account; CLAR=Clarification;
SUP=Supporting; CONC=Concession; Numbers in parentheses are frequencies; -=P>.05)
-(1) Table 43 shows that when speaker’s gender alone, hearer’s gender alone, or both speaker’s and hearer’s genders is considered, no significant difference is found on the use of emphasis, supporting, or concession. In other words, gender has no impact on the performance of every pragmatic strategy in HA.
(2) When concession and supporting are compared, no significant difference is found, either. One possible reason is that HA is made by agreement marker(s) whose
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structure is limited. Therefore, types of pragmatic strategies and their frequencies are also limited. In other words, structure but not gender is probably the reason why no significant differences can be found in the usage of pragmatic strategies in HA.
5.3. Pragmatic Strategies in SM (Supportive Moves Alone)
In this section, how pragmatic strategies are performed in SM is analyzed. First, pragmatic strategies in SM by subjects as a whole are discussed. Then, the impact of gender on pragmatic strategies in SM is investigated.
5.3.1. Pragmatic Strategies in SM by Subjects as a Whole
Table 44 shows the distribution of pragmatic strategies in SM. Related analyses and discussions are given after the presentation of Table 44.
Table 44. Pragmatic strategies in supportive moves
(TRS= Textual Rhetoric Strategy; IRS= Interpersonal Rhetoric Strategy; EMP= Emphasis; ELA=Elaboration; ACC=Account;
(1) TRS is used significantly more than IRS (P=.000). It means that when people make agreement by SM, like the result of HA, the priority is to make information clear and sufficient, while maintaining interpersonal relationship is secondary.
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(2) Among TRS, emphasis (43.8%) and elaboration (42.5%) are main strategies, which are insignificantly different from each other (P=.922). High frequency of emphasis suggests that when people make agreement by SMs, they stress what they agree for. For example, speakers may modify the repetition of agreed propositional content by intensifiers.
As for elaboration, it means that speakers often make agreement by building on previous speaker’s idea and extending more in the usage of SMs. By the application of emphasis and elaboration, although agreement made by SMs is more indirect and obscure, hearers can still receive speakers’ intention of agreement.
(3) Based on the statistic results above, the priority order of TRS is listed below.
It means that TRS can be divided into two groups: emphasis and elaboration, which are frequently used, and account and clarification, which are less frequently used in SMs.
(4) Supporting, as an important strategy in IRS of SMs, scores significantly higher than concession (P=.013). By the application of supporting, speakers show agreement and empathy at the same time. Because supporting is often performed by showing personal judgment, it is mostly found in SMs, such as in EPCs.
(5) The most important finding lies in the use of IRS. Division of pragmatic labor is found when IRSs of HA and SM are compared (see HA’s IRS in Table 42). That is, concession is mostly performed in HA, while supporting is mostly performed in SM.
{ }
>EMP
ELA
{ }
CLAR ACC‧
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5.3.2. Pragmatic Strategies in SM by Gender
In this section, pragmatic strategies found in supportive moves by gender are investigated. Distributions are compared in Table 45 below. In the following
discussion, because patterns by speaker’s gender alone, by hearer’s gender alone, and by both speaker’s and hearer’s genders are similar, tables are combined and results are analyzed together.
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Table 45. Pragmatic strategies in supportive moves by gender
(TRS= Textual Rhetoric Strategy; IRS=Interpersonal Rhetoric Strategy;
EMP= Emphasis; ELA=Elaboration; ACC=Account; CLAR=Clarification;
SUP=Supporting; CONC=Concession; Numbers in parentheses are frequencies; -=P>.05)
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(1) According to Table 45, for strategies by gender, no significant difference is found in the use of every pragmatic strategy. The only exception lies in elaboration, when both speaker’s and hearer’s genders are taken into consideration. That is, FF use elaboration significantly more than MF do (P=.017). In other words, female hearers’ receipt of elaboration is influenced by speaker’s gender. Like what have been mentioned above, for women, elaboration is an important strategy which frequently applies in same-sex conversation. This result confirms Coates’s
findings in 1989.It is found that in female-female conversations, interlocutors like to build on each other’s contribution and agree with other’s opinion. In this way, women show high involvement and listenership to establish solidarity and rapport between each other.
(2) When either strategies of TRS or IRS are compared, no significant difference is found in Table 45. It means that people’s performance of emphasis and elaboration are similar. And people’s use of supporting and concession are similar as well.
5.4. Pragmatic Strategies in HA+SM (Head Act with Supportive Moves)
In this section, pragmatic strategies in HA+SM are presented. They are analyzed by subjects as a whole, first. Then, the influence of gender is discussed.
5.4.1. Pragmatic Strategies in HA+SM by Subjects as a Whole
The distribution of pragmatic strategies in HA+SM is shown below. For IRS in HA+SM, because of low frequency and no significant difference found, they are not discussed here.
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Table 46. Pragmatic strategies in head act with supportive moves
(TRS= Textual Rhetoric Strategy; IRS= Interpersonal Rhetoric Strategy;
HA+SM= Head Act with Supportive Moves;*=P<.05; -=P>.05) HA+SM
Prag. Strategies % (Frquency) P
TRS
Emphasis 56.9% (41) EMP:ELA=.022*
EMP:ACC=.000*
(1) In HA+SM, TRS is used significantly more than IRS (P=.000). Again, it means that when people make agreement by HA+SM, it is primary to make sure through the process of making agreement, clear and sufficient information is expressed.
(2) For TRS, the table shows that over half of data belongs to emphasis, which is
(2) For TRS, the table shows that over half of data belongs to emphasis, which is