Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.5. Agreement as a Speech Act
2.5.5. Linguistic Features of Agreement
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2.5.5. Linguistic Features of Agreement
Pomerantz (1984) observes that agreement has some general features. For example, the agreement turn is occupied by agreement components in contrast with disagreement which is often prefaced. Agreement is often with agreement markers and with a minimization of gap between the prior assessment and the agreement turn.
However, Kotthoff (1993) suggests and verifies that the performance of agreement or disagreement depends not only on the propositional content of the prior turn but also on contextual factors, such as genre, social factors, institutional situation, and culture.
Pomerantz (1984) divides agreement into three types: the upgrading agreement, the agreement with same evaluation, and the downgrading agreement. This classification has been adopted and adapted by most of the studies (Kuo; 1994;
Mulkay, 1985; Baym, 1996; Rattai, 2003). Upgrading agreements often occur as parts of a cluster of agreements or agreement series. Two linguistic features, a stronger evaluative term and an intensifier, are found to mark upgrading agreements.
As for the agreement with same evaluation, the most common strategy used is repetition. Brown and Levinson (1987) indicate that agreement could be stressed by repeating part or all of the evaluation in the previous context. Repetition can stress the speaker’s interest, surprise, or emotion.
As for downgrading agreements, using weaker evaluation term is their linguistic features. Pomerantz (1984) gives some “weaker” synonyms. For instance, substitute
“beautiful” with “pretty.”
Kuo (1994) investigates the procedures of showing agreement and disagreement in a 10-minute call-in radio program. In her data, Kuo finds three forms of agreement:
repetition, upgrading agreement, and back-channel responses. As for upgrading agreement, two techniques, “stronger evaluative terms” and “intensifying modifiers”
are used. As for back-channel responses, Kuo supports Pomerantz’s (1975) claim that
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these positive acknowledgement tokens (e.g., mhm, yeah and right) are weak agreement forms. It means that these tokens not only function as the reassurance of listenership but also show agreement. But in this study, the back-channel responses are not counted as agreement markers because it is difficult to prove these tokens function to agree with others or just to show listenership.
Baym (1996) takes Pomerantz’s (1987) categorization as the base to investigate agreement and disagreement in the genre of computer-mediated communication. She finds three means to create agreement: explicit indicants of agreement, making an evaluation, and reasoning through elaboration. Explicit indicants of agreement contain two sub-types. They are explicit phrase “I agree” and strong agreement tokens such as
“indeed” and “you said it.” Making assessment, which is adopted from Pomerantz includes upgrades, downgrades, as well as matching agreements. Reasoning through elaboration as the third way to show agreement is a new category not included in Pomerantz’s studies. By giving a reason, people are assumed to have the same viewpoint.
In analyzing Japanese conversations, Mori (1999) finds four features of agreement: the use of agreement tokens, repetition, early delivery of agreement (overlapping), and semantic or phonological intensification. Rattai (2003) consults Pomerantz’s categorizations and investigates agreement as well as disagreement features in Russian News interviews. In Rattai’s classification, agreement is divided into strong agreement and weak agreement. According to Rattai, strong agreement has three subcategories—direct agreement, upgrading, and same evaluation, while weak agreement has agreement via interviewer, affiliation, token agreement, and downgrade.
Rattai’s biggest contribution is that she expands the meaning of upgrading agreement and includes some implicit agreements that Pomerantz does not classify. Rattai indicates that by doing upgrading, the speaker not only agrees with his/her
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interlocutors but also add new but relevant information to the prior evaluation.
Nevertheless, Rattai does not further specify what the new information means;
thererfore, it is not clear whether the new information means a reason of agreement, a new angle of the topic, or something else.
Gao et al. (2006) investigate the structure of agreement in Mandarin Chinese, and discover six linguistic features: agreement token, repetition, explanation/addition, concluding for the prior turn, silence, and repair. Among all, data of silence and repair are few.
Based on the previous studies, agreement is concluded to have some general patterns. When agreement is as a preferred response, it is often stated strongly, shortly, and directly. And from the perspective of degrees, agreement can be upgrading, preserving or downgrading by certain linguistic markers.
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Chapter 3 Methodology
This section is divided into four parts: data collection, procedures of data analysis, classification of agreement, and pragmatic strategies in agreement. First, data collection is to indicate where the data come from and the restriction of the data.
Second, procedures of data analysis are provided. Then, the structure of agreement will be first classified into a head act and supportive move(s) (Blum-Kulka et al., 1989). And according to degree of agreeing, agreements can also be classified into upgrading, preserving, and downgrading agreements. Finally, pragmatic functions in agreement with some examples will be presented.
3.1. Data Collection
In this section, data resource and the delimitation of data are introduced first.
Then, social distribution of subjects is provided.
3.1.1. Data Resource
The data of agreement analyzed in this thesis was collected from The NCCU Corpus of Spoken Mandarin (2011). Eight face-to-face conversations lasting from 15 to 20 minutes long were used as the data base of this thesis. Among them, two conversations are Male to Male, two are Female to Female, and four are Male to Female. Participants in these conversations are either friends or couples. The topics of these conversations are all about daily life.
For the restrictions of data, first, only the agreement based on personal judgments was included, while the agreement based on a fact or content was excluded.
For example, data were included when the previous speaker says, “The flower is
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beautiful,” and the speaker agrees on the opinion. By contrast, when the previous speaker says, “Today is Tuesday,” and the speaker agrees on the fact, this kind of data was excluded. Second, only substantial linguistic forms are investigated in this study.
Therefore, silence, overlapping and phonological intensification not included in data.
Among them, sound aspects are only taken as probes to locate substantial forms of agreement.
3.1.2. Social Distribution of Subjects
The 8 conversations are randomly chosen. However, under the consideration of the impacts of gender, three types of interlocutor combination were included:
male-male (MM, hereafter), female-female (FF, hereafter) and male-female (MF, hereafter). Also, all the subjects age between 20 and 33 years old.
3.2. Procedures of Data Analysis
All the agreement data were first located in the 4 conversations. Afterwards, the structure of agreement (i.e. the head act and supportive move) is determined. Then, the linguistic features of each agreement are identified. To be specific, a head act is the one which is composed of an explicit Agreement Markers (and marked as “AM”);
the Supportive Move is further divided into supporting by repeating Agreed Propositional Content (and marked as “APC”) and supporting by adding Extra Propositional Content (marked as “EPC”). Next, the head act and the two subcategories of supportive move are further differentiated by the strength of modifications attributed to them. Then, their pragmatic strategies are labeled.
3.3. Classification of Agreement
This section discusses about how agreements can be classified. Agreements will be divided into head act and supportive move(s) first. Then, according to with or
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without contingency, agreements can be further classified into upgrading agreements, preserving agreements, and downgrading agreements.
3.3.1. The Structure of Agreement
In the research of disagreement, Yang (2010) discovers that not all parts of the disagreement utterance are of equal importance. According to Blum-Kulka et al.
(1989), the structure of disagreement has two components: the head act and supportive move(s). Nevertheless, in many studies of agreement (Pomerantz, 1984;
Kuo; 1994; Mulkay, 1985; Baym, 1996; Rattai, 2003), none of them discuss the different “weight” in the internal structure of agreement. Although agreement and disagreement are contrary speech acts, the procedure of proffering either of these two responses is similar. Thus, the way of classification in Yang (2010) and Blum-Kulka et al. (1989) is adopted and adapted in this study.
Following Blum-Kulka et al.’s concept in this thesis, a head act stands for the core of a speech act sequence, while a supportive move is the adjuncts used to modify the force of the speech act. In other words, the force of agreement can be strengthened or weakened by the supportive move(s). To locate the head act in a speech act sequence, Yang (2010) proposes that finding the explicit illocutionary force indicating device (IFID) (Searle, 1969) is the top priority, because, according to Searle, the most direct realization of a speech act is accomplished by the application of an IFID.
Moreover, in this study, supportive moves of agreement are further divided into two parts: the Agreed Propositional Content (i.e. the agreed opinion) and the Extra Propositional Content (i.e. some elaboration of the agreed evaluation). Example (1)1 below is used to illustrated them.
1 Example (1) is a fabricated example. In the database of this thesis, combination of AM, APC, and EPC never co-occurs.
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(1)
T1A: ..那雙鞋好醜喔
T2B: ..(AM)對啊..(APC)那雙鞋真醜..(EPC)因為上面的裝飾太俗氣了
In example (1), when speaker A proffers an evaluation on shoes in the first turn (T1), Speaker B agrees with him/her in the second turn (T2). In T2, the agreement marker “對啊” is used to show direct agreement on the content of T1. The term “那雙 鞋真醜” is a repetition of the agreed propositional content. And “因為上面的裝飾太 俗氣了” is an EPC used to justify why the shoes’ ugliness is true. The APC and the EPC together modify the illocutionary force given by the head act.
However, people do not always agree with each other directly. The head act of the speech act sequence is found missing oftentimes, while the illocutionary force of agreement is actually fulfilled by those adjuncts (Yang, 2010). Hence, how these adjuncts are formed to support the agreement act and their strategies are one of the foci of this study.
According to the criteria summarized above, in this study, the structure of agreement includes six combinations: AM alone, APC alone, EPC alone, AM+APC, AM+EPC, and APC+EPC. However, as mentioned above, AM, APC, and EPC never show up simultaneously in the current data. Table 2 presents the six combinations of agreement with examples.
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Table 2. Six combinations of agreement by the head act and the supportive move (AM= Agreement Marker, APC= Agreed Propositional Content, EPC= Extra Propositional Content)
Nevertheless, the above classification of the structure of agreement is not enough.
No matter in the head act or the supportive move(s), there are many modifications to adjust the degrees of agreement. Henceforth, it is necessary to make further categorization on these modifications.
3.3.2. Agreements with vs. without Contingency
Pomerantz (1984) proposes that agreements can be divided into upgrading agreement, preserving agreement, and downgrading agreement according to the strength of agreement. In this thesis, these three types of agreement are grouped into agreement without contingency and agreement with contingency (as indicated in Figure 2).
2竹壽司and瞞著爹 are Japanese food restaurants.
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Figure 2. Decision tree of agreement
In using the former, the speaker shows complete agreement to the hearer; in using the latter, the speaker yields only partial agreement. In other words, when people agree without any hesitation, they choose upgrading agreement or preserving agreement as the first assessment. When people partially agree with the hearers, they choose downgrading agreements to indicate that their agreement to the hearer is under certain condition and/or to certain degree.
The following examples are used to illustrate the differences among upgrading, preserving, and downgrading agreements.
3.3.2.1. Upgrading Agreement
Upgrading agreement, which is often realized by intensifiers and stronger evaluative terms, occurs when people strengthen the force of agreement (Pomerantz, 1984; Kuo, 1994; Mulkay, 1985; Baym, 1996; Rattai, 2003). Example (2) below is one of the examples of this kind.
Agreements
Without Contingency With Contingency
Upgraded Preserved Downgraded Agreements Agreements Agreements
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(2)
A: ..eh 為什麼這種事情…(0.6)然後..那我如果講你<L2 care L2>嗎 B: …(0.6)是不會很<L2 care L2>可是沒有很想講就是了
T1A: ..不是啊譬如說我..我如果碰到<L2 Febe L2>然後我就丟..eh..那那 個我猜牙套美少女..她就會說<L3 khaupe L3>喔
T2B: (0)她當然會說<L3 khaupe L3>啊
In example (2), Speaker B agrees that the girl about whom they are discussed would become angry when people make fun of her by mentioning her experience of joining in a TV show. Speaker B adds the intensifier “當然” when repeating the assumed reaction in order to strengthen his agreement. Because of the intensifier, Speaker A is assured of Speaker B’s opinion as same as his own. And the second turn (T2) is as an upgrading agreement in this thesis.
3.3.2.2. Preserving Agreement
A preserving agreement, which is often realized by repeating or completing the previous speaker’s turn, is used to express evaluation of equal strength toward the referent (Brown and Levinson, 1987; Coates, 1989). It can be illustrated by example (3).
(3)
T1A: ..反正她超酷的啊
T2B: ..她超..超酷的啊 3
Speaker A and Speaker B talk about a super star named Beyonce. After speaker A describes Beyonce as a cool woman, speaker B agrees with speaker A by repeating his contribution “她超酷的阿” with no other modifiers. By the repetition in T2, the
3 According to phonological evidence of data, the terms “超” in T2 by speaker B is “pure” repetition which is not phonologically intensified.
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agreeing party expresses the same opinion toward the super star. Thus, T2 is a preserving agreement because the degree of agreement is neither strengthened nor weakened.
3.3.2.3. Downgrading Agreement
Downgrading agreement, which is often realized by alleviators or weaker evaluative terms, occurs when the strength of agreement is weakened (Pomerantz, 1984; Baym, 1996; Rattai, 2003). Two kinds of downgrading agreement are found in this thesis. The first one occurs when speakers make agreement under a condition with substantial propositional content. If without this condition, speakers may not agree with the previous speakers. The other kind of downgrading agreement occurs when no condition with substantial propositional content is found. People just make weakened agreement without any reason to show partial agreement. Example (4) is one example of agreement with substantial condition in which many alleviators are applied to perform a downgrading agreement.
(4)
A: (0)可是大家不會怕吧..愛校服務就去愛校服務..反正他也不要..他
也不想睡午覺…(1.2)[他就]覺得[[說]]
B: [對啦]..[[沒有沒有]]
A: ..[[[上課再補回來@@]]]
T1B: [[[可是他..有一個更]]]更猛的是..叫他們禮拜六來愛校服務
T2A: ..喔..那可能就會比較害怕一點
Speaker A originally maintains that students are not afraid of being punished and assigned to do Love-for-school service at midday. Speaker A thinks that the students would be happy to be punished because they do not need to take a nap, which they are not willing to do. Speaker B tries to persuade Speaker A that students will be afraid of being punished if the punishment is to be implemented on Saturdays, days for
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students to relax and to play. In T2, even though Speaker A makes a concession and agrees on Speaker B’s evaluation, Speaker A modifies T2 with alleviators, “可能,”
“比較,” and “一點” to weaken the agreement force to show partial agreement. In other words, it is because the condition that punishment may be implemented on weekends, Speaker A agrees with Speaker B.
Example (5) is used to illustrate an downgrading agreement without a substantial condition.
(5)
A: (0)她超偏激的
T1B: ..唉唷她長大了啦..有啦她比較[[長大了]]
T2A: [[也是啦]][有啦]
In example (5), Speaker A considers their friend as “super” ultra at first. But after the persuasion from Speaker B in T1, Speaker A concedes and partially admits that the friend grows mature by the term “也是啦” without any other reasons or under any condition.
3.4. Pragmatic Strategies in Agreement
After the agreement activities are divided according to how the modifications influence the strength of agreement act, a further classification is made based on what pragmatic strategies involve in agreement. After the investigations of the pragmatic performances, how pragmatic strategies are performed in each type of agreement can be explored.
According to Leech (1983), pragmatic strategies can be divided into textual rhetoric strategies (TRS, hereafter) and interpersonal rhetoric strategies (IRS, hereafter) according to different pragmatic principles. In this study, pragmatic strategies of agreement are divided into IRS and TRS first. And under these rhetorics,
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six pragmatic strategies are found. They are emphasis, elaboration, account, and clarification under TRS, and supporting and concession under IRS as what are shown in Table 3. Definition and examples of these pragmatic strategies are presented below.
Table 3. Pragmatic strategies in agreement Textual
Emphasis is served when people agree with others by emphasizing their point of view. Emphasis is realized by modifying agreement markers or repeating the content of the evaluation with intensifiers. Repeating the previous utterance has been found as an important strategy to agree with others in previous studies (Pomerantz, 1984; Kuo, 1994; Mori, 1999; Gao et al., 2006). For example, the agreeing party is found used to put intensifiers to modify the repeated propositional content in this study. In example (6), Speaker B emphasizes on how ultra a girl is by the intensifiers, such as the adverb
“超” as well as “蠻” and the particle “啊.” Because of the strategy, emphasis, Speaker B strengthens the degree of agreement.
(6)
T1A: ..有啊他是很偏激
T2B: ..他..超偏激啊他從以前就蠻偏激
3.4.2. Elaboration
Agreement can also be performed by the strategy of elaboration which has been discovered in many previous reports (Baym, 1996; Mori, 1999). Elaboration is often performed by Addition on the semantic level. By extending each other’s contributions
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or adding relevant information, the speaker reveals their agreement because only when people view the things in the same perspective can they elaborate the evaluation in T1. Example (7) is a good illustration of this type. Speaker B agrees with Speaker A that one friend of them is suitable to be a professor. He further elaborates on his appearance and the effect that every student would admire him if the friend becomes a professor one day. By the application of elaboration, Speaker B extends his agreement in many turns on their shared opinions toward the friend.
(7)
T1A: (0)我真的覺得劉貫南..蠻適合那個 eh B: ..當教授喔
A: ..對啊不覺得嗎..[如果是學生我一定會]喔 B: [他他蠻適合的啊]
T2B: ..喔超帥 A: ..帥炸
T2B: ..然後結果收考卷的時候..考卷上都不是答案都是學生的那個<L2
T2B: ..然後結果收考卷的時候..考卷上都不是答案都是學生的那個<L2