2.2 Non-canonical Use: Deictic and Non-deictic Reference
2.2.3 Third Person Pronouns
2.2.3.2 Third Person Plural
Kitagawa & Lehrer (1990: 746) argue that the third person plural only allows vague or deictic interpretation. In English, the third person plural must anchor in space or time so as to capture the vague reading. Without the anchor point, it would carry the deictic meaning as the identification of the third person plural is possible through the contexts that provide information for making inference about the possible referents. The examples of the deictic and the vague third person plural are presented for comparison.
(2.51) In Renaissance Italy, they built a lot of palaces.
(2.52) They built a lot of palaces.
(Kitagawa & Lehrer 1990: 746) The third person plural, they in (2.51) refers to a group of specific yet non-identified people who built plenty of palaces in the time of Renaissance Italy, while they in (2.52) indicates specific third party who may be deictically present or explicitly or implicitly mentioned in the speech context.
Wang (2007: 81) contends that time and space are not anchor points in Chinese;
instead, the antecedents are. For example, (2.51a) is odd, and (2-51b) is better because the anchor point in Chinese is the antecedent, i.e. the Italians in Renaissance, in the discourse.12
12 Wang (2007) suggests that the other interpretation of (2-51) is (2-51c).
(2-51c) 文藝復興 時期 的 義大利人
Wenyifuxing shiqi de yidaliren Renaissance time NOM Italian
蓋 了 很多 宮殿。
gai le henduo gongdian
build PFV many palace
‘In Renaissance Italy, they built a lot of palaces.’
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(2.51a) ?在 文藝復興 時期 的 義大利，
Zai wenyifuxing shiqi de yidali At Renaissance time NOM Italy
他們 蓋 了 很多 宮殿。
ta men gai le henduo gongdian 3pl build PFV many palace
(2.51b) 在 文藝復興 時期 的 義大利，
Zai wenyifuxing shiqi de yidali At Renaissance time NOM Italy
人們 蓋 了 很多 宮殿。
renmen gai le henduo gong dian people build PFV many palace ‘In Renaissance Italy, they built a lot of palaces.’
(Wang 2007: 81) Wang’s argument (2007) supports the study of Kitagawa & Lehrer (1990) and concludes that third person plural are used either deictically or vaguely in Chinese.
2.3 Summary
Personal pronouns can be employed in communication with a canonical or non-canonical/atypical meaning. In their typical use, the personal pronoun refers indexically and deictically to (an) intended referent(s), whereas it is used non-canonically when the intended referent is not indicated by the personal pronouns as they could mismatch with person, number or both. For instance, a teacher may use first personal plural to refer to himself/herself (Liu et al. 2001), or a politician could use second person singular to indicate the third party (Chang 1998). Moreover, the personal pronouns are used in an atypical way when the identification of the referent is less likely. As we focus on the non-canonical uses of personal pronouns, we summarize the various types of their non-canonical uses in Table 2.1. (Personal pronouns are abbreviated as PPs).
It is inappropriate interpretation since they in (2-51) is vague and does not necessarily refer to the Italians but others who built the palaces in Renaissance Italy. However, (2-51b) gives rise to a meaning that they in (2-51) only refers to the Italians but does not indicate other people who may build the palaces in the time of Renaissance Italy. Therefore, the use of restrictive clause to modify only the Italians as in (2-51b) is inappropriate. Instead, they in (2-51) is interchangeable with people in (2-51c) which differs from (2-51b), the latter of which restricts the interpretation of they only to the Italians.
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Table 2.1: Non-canonical use of Chinese personal pronouns
PPs Number Types1st singular impersonal, dramatic
plural impersonal, vague, dramatic
2nd singular impersonal, vague, dramatic, metalinguistic, projective plural vague, dramatic
3rd singular generic, dramatic, redundant, cataphoric, inferred, extended, non-referring, multiple reference, coherence marker
plural vague, dramatic
The current study would take the categories proposed in the preceding work as basis of our classification and explore whether there are further uses in addition to these previously proposed types in our examination of the distributions and functions of these atypical uses of Chinese personal pronouns in the two Chinese spoken genres.
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Chapter Three Personal Pronouns in Two Speech Genres
The present work investigates the distribution of the canonical and non-canonical uses of personal pronouns, with a special focus on the latter. The central purpose of this chapter is to explore the functional aspects with the examination of the two speech genres, i.e. TV interviews and daily conversations.
This study follows the classification and criteria which have been well-defined in the previous sections.
3.1 Overall Results
The totals and the normalized frequences (per 1000 morphemes) of the personal pronouns in the TV interviews and the daily conversations are presented in Table 3.1.
It is found that each singular form outnumbers its plural in both speech genres. In daily conversations, the first person singular is used most frequently (19.5), while in TV interviews, the second person singular (15.3) has the highest frequency. The difference of the first person singular between daily conversation and TV interviews accounts for the greatest discrepancy in the two genres. In overall terms, the frequencies of pronouns in the daily genre (59.4) are higher than those in the TV genre (46.3).
Table 3.1: Spoken data in the two speech genres
13 SourcePerson Daily conversations TV interviews
1st singular
459 (19.5)
360 (12.7)2nd singular 363 (15.4)
433 (15.3)
3rd singular 336 (14.3) 332 (11.7) 1st plural 111 (4.7) 148 (5.2)
2nd plural 42 (1.8) 10 (0.4)
3rd plural 87 (3.7) 29 (1.0)
Total
1398 (59.4) 1312 (46.3)
Total of morphemes 23556 (100) 28338 (100)
In addition to the initial comparison of token frequency in each genre, the use of personal pronouns can be divided into canonical and non-canonical uses. As can be seen in Table 3.2, it is found that in daily conversations, the canonical use (45.0) is much more frequent than its non-canonical use (14.4), while in TV interviews, the distinction is less obvious—25.5 vs. 20.8. In other words, in daily conversations,
13 Hereafter, the number in parentheses shows the normalized frequency per 1000 morphemes.
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people tend to use personal pronouns to indicate intended referents, while in public talk like TV interviews, the canonical and non-canonical uses of personal pronouns is comparatively more balanced.
Table 3.2: The canonical and non-canonical use in the two data banks
Canonicity Sources Person
Daily conversation TV interviews
Canonical Non-canonical Canonical Non-canonical
1st singular 443 (18.8) 16 (0.7) 244 (8.6) 116 (4.1) 2nd singular 248 (10.5) 115 (4.9) 160 (5.7) 273 (9.6) 3rd singular 281 (12.0) 55 (2.3) 249 (8.8) 83 (2.9) 1st plural 22 (0.9) 89 (3.8) 45 (1.6) 103 (3.6) 2nd plural 18 (0.8) 24 (1.0) 6 (0.2) 4 (0.2) 3rd plural 46 (2.0) 41 (1.7) 17 (0.6) 12 (0.4) Total1058 (45.0) 340 (14.4) 721 (25.5) 591 (20.8)
Total of morphemes 23556 23556 28338 28338
The focus of the following sections will be on the pragmatic functions of the non-canonical use in the two speech contexts.
3.2 Non-canonical Uses of Personal Pronouns
The analysis will move from singular to plural due to the pervasive use of the singular form in the current study. The following discussion includes functions they perform in both genres and their functional distinction.
3.2.1 First Person Singular Pronoun: Wo ‘I’
In the current study, there are two main categories in the non-canonical use of first person singular—impersonal and dramatic use. Additionally, the metalinguistic
wo ‘I’ is observed in our data bank. Each category will be discussed respectively in
the following.3.2.1.1 Impersonal Use
A personal pronoun with the impersonal use refers to anyone who fits the
contextual description. The impersonal wo ‘I’ is usually used when the speaker constructs a hypothetical context where s/he views herself/himself as a representative in a group of people. It occurs in both speech genres but with a slightly higher frequency in the TV interviews.37
Table 3.3: Impersonal wo in the two spoken genres
Sources Daily conversations TV interviews
Tokens (Frequency) 8 (0.34)
54 (1.90)
Daily conversations
The impersonal wo tends to occur in a hypothetical context introduced by an exemplary phrase, such as xiang ‘be like’, biru ‘for instance’ or by a conditional phrase, ruguo ‘if’. In the daily conversation, seven out of the eight tokens (87.5%) of the impersonal wo are found to be preceded by an exemplary phrase. Kitagawa &
Lehrer (1990: 753) state that the hypothetical situation could decrease a sense of presumption resulting from the use of the impersonal wo when people make claims in their utterances (see also Wang 2007 for a similar analysis). An instance is given for illustration. The topic is about making comments on others’ performance.14
A: ‘Like, confidence, the same act of acting confidence. As one person shows his/her confidence, perhaps, your interpretation to his/her act may differ from mine.’
The use of wo in (3.1) does not refer deictically to the speaker per se, and it is replaceable with qita ren ‘other people’. The speaker A adopts the impersonal wo, and
14 The discussed token will be in boldface, underlined, italicized, and indicated by an arrow.
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takes herself as a model example to address a universal claim about how people may interpret confidence differently. The xiang ‘be like’ implies that the general claim is used in a hypothetical context, and it would reduce the pompous feeling caused by the impersonal wo. The current result supports Wang’s (2007: 53) proposal that people impersonal wo is followed by the conditional marker, rugo ‘if’.
(3.2) S: 如果 我 現在 說， 五月 十五號， 原來 fifteenth, and all my expectation will be gone. The price rises on June first as it always does during the summer season and till October first, I would fine-tune the price.’
There are three tokens of the impersonal wo in (3.2). In the first and third wo, the speaker considers himself as the decision maker of whom the speaker speaks on behalf, while in the second wo, the speaker regards himself as the representative of those who expect the raise of electronic bills. Even if the speaker takes the impersonal
wo to express his opinions, he skillfully avoids a sense of presumption by placing the
speech in the hypothetical context with rugo ‘if’.Furthermore, it is observed that in (3.2), the speaker could, by means of offering professional advice to the current situation, construct his authority in talk. Lin (1993: 93) suggests that the impersonal wo is a display of ‘the speaker’s intention to convince the listeners of his/her account’. As a speaker positions himself with the
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decision marker, his talk aligns him with the reference group, i.e. the authority, being described (Stirling and Manderson 2011: 1599). That is, the speaker talks as if this speech were given by the authority, which implicitly enhances his credibility in speech.
Apart from the authorative impression, it is found that in TV interviews, the impersonal wo could carry an expressive function, that is, to show speakers’ attitude in an implicit manner. In (3.3), the journalist, J states the deficit of Labor Insurance system and mentions that a new policy should have replaced the current one.
(3.3) J: 所以 本來 他們 一直 在 商量 一 個 changes. That is, I may need to buy insurance when I live longer. (It is necessary to know) how I can extend it or whether I need to buy other insurance.’
According to the speech context, the four tokens of wo do not refer to the speaker alone but to the workers who may need to buy another insurance under a defective insurance system. The speaker regards herself as a spokesperson of the workers who, according to the speaker, suffer from the policy and the reformation of the insurance system. By identifying herself with the laborers, the speaker creates a sense of comradeship (Biq 1991), and makes the workers feel that she is in the same team with them. In other words, even though interlocutors express opinions in a less subjective way by adopting the impersonal wo, it could reveal their attitude toward the speech events. It is worth exploring whether the impersonal ni would also have this effect.
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Summary of Impersonal Wo ‘I’
The impersonal wo is more frequent in the TV genre than in the daily databank.
In TV interviews, the impersonal wo occurs more pervasively as it can be found in various situations where the speakers use it either to construct their authority in statements, or to express their attitude toward the event. On the other hand, in daily conversations, it tends to occur in a hypothetical context where speakers make general claims about events.
3.2.1.2 Dramatic Use
From the current databank, it is found that when engaging in talk, people would change their viewpoints and jump from the current discourse situation to a described situation—a characteristic of the dramatic use. It should be noted that the dramatic wo differs from the impersonal wo in two aspects—firstly, the speaker temporarily discards his/her current perspective (the impersonal wo includes the speaker within its referential scope), and secondly, it cannot be replaced with yi ge ren ‘one person’.
Table 3.4 shows the tokens and normalized frequency of the dramatic wo.
Table 3.4: Dramatic wo in the two spoken genres
Sources Daily conversation TV interviews
Tokens (Frequency) 8 (0.34)
61 (2.15)
To explore the functions of the dramatic wo, the two genres will be discussed respectively.
Daily conversations
An example of the dramatic wo is excerpted for illustration. The male speaker, M expresses his opinions on how couples usually pays for the bills.
(3.4) M: 嗯? 是 嗎? 啊，反正， 反正 大 錢， 大 錢
Eh? shi ma a fanzheng fanzheng da qian da quian PRT be PRT PRT anyway anyway big money big money
各自 出 嘛。小 錢 就 沿路 讓 他
gezi chu ma xiao qian jiu yanlu rang ta each spend PRT small money just along let him
一直 請 嘛。 是 不 是？
yizhi qing ma shi bu shi always treat PRT yes NEG yes
F: 不 對。
Bu dui NEG right M: 是 吧 ?
41 bills.I know the trick well.Girls are always doing this trick, aren’t they?’
There are two tokens of wo. The former refers deictically to the speaker F, and the latter to F’s boyfriend—the perspective to which the speaker M switches. M argues that it is common for women to take men’s treats for granted. To illustrate his argument, the male speaker jumps to a described situation where the participant roles, i.e. the dramatic wo and ni, to speak for the male speaker. The alternation of voice/
perspective works as a device to involve others in support of the addresser’s assumption about the female addresser’s behavior of receiving a treat. It is further found that the speakers can implicitly display their unfavorable attitude toward the event they described. For instance, M does not believe that F would pay for herself, through the switch of perspectives from the self to others, and M can freely display his speculation of F’s inner thoughts and show his opponent feeling toward the underlying social convention—that the male are obliged to pay the bills.
TV interviews
Example (3.5) from a TV interview will further illustrate the addresser’s intention in strengthening his arguments and revealing his attitude toward the discussed event through the use of dramatic wo. The journalist, J proposes his observation on the relationship that exists among politicians and other people.
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J: ‘We have long been under a political atmosphere. I have a bitter feeling which results from people’s deprivation of one another. But never forget that the bitter feeling results from people’s acceptance of politicians’
ingratiation. You want my vote. Go and get me some benefit. Damn! That is how it works.’
In (3.5), there are three occurrences of wo; except the first deictic wo, the second and the third ones are the dramatic wo. The speaker alters his viewpoint by assuming the role of a taxpayer/voter to illustrate his observation about the inappropriate relation between politicians and people. Speaking from others’ voice, the speaker attempts to stay detached and to avoid displaying a biased perspective. Though the dramatic wo could be adopted as a means to conceal the speakers’ stance, their attitude toward the event could be inferred from the context. For instance, in (3.5) the speaker’s opinions reveal his antagonistic attitude toward the unsatisfactory relation between the taxpayers and the politicians. Thus, even if the use of the dramatic wo can relieve the speakers’ responsibility of their comments; nevertheless, their repugnant attitude can still be observed. Moreover, with a dramatic wo, the speaker displays his opinions in a vivid way by involving the characters in an imaginary interaction, for instance, F and her boyfriend in (3.4) and the taxpayers and the politicians in (3.5).
Furthermore, the switch of viewpoint tends to occur in showing both opposing
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and supportive attitude in TV interviews. Example (3.6) is given to demonstrate the speaker’s intention of displaying agreement with the non-participants in the described event. The journalist, J argues that pervasive inequality exists among social classes.
(3.6) G: 大家 發現 說， 不論 是 這些 社會 的
G: ‘Everyone found that class distinction exists not only in the social insurance system but in the vacation system. .…(They) have been discussed the wage, the basic wage. At that time, even the raise of ten NT dollars in the basic wage is not possible. The rage culminates. I rest fewer days than others, I got lower wage than others, and even my retirement insurance, you decide to adopt different measures. ’
The three tokens of the first person singular above are the dramatic wo. They do not refer to the speaker but to the workers of whom the speaker assumes the voice. To strengthen her arguments of the unfair treatment the workers receive, the speaker pretends to be one of the laborers and imitates his/her possible responses toward the unequal condition. In this case, the speaker implicitly shows her agreement with the workers by switching to their roles and voicing for their inferior situation. Though the
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speaker does not speak on behalf of herself, her opinion unveils her sympathetic attitude toward the described event.
Summary of Dramatic Wo ‘I’
In the current database, the dramatic use of first person singular occurs more frequently in TV interviews than in daily conversations. In TV talk, the speakers tend to switch their viewpoints to others so that these non-participants may support their statements or arguments which involve the speakers’ attitudes toward the discussed event. The dramatic wo in TV interviews works as a device to conceal addresser’s stance, while the function of the dramatic wo in daily conversations is used primarily to support statements and to add vividness to speakers’ talk.
3.2.1.3 Metalinguistic Use
The metalinguistic use indicates a propositionally redundant yet referential category. The metalinguistic wo only occurs in TV interviews where the speaker makes personal suggestions related to the discussed event.
(3.7) L: 沒有， 我 跟 你，這樣 講。 沒有 一 個
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H: 我 同意。 喔， 這個 阿！
Wo tongyi o zhe a 1s agree PRT this PRT
L: ‘No, I am telling you that there is no country that makes its insurance system so complicated. It should be one single social insurance system’
G: ‘If you cannot do that, you really.’
L: ‘(You) Single social insurance system, you can divide it into, for instance, (I) three systems. (If) you insist on receiving more, you should pay more in advance.’
L: ‘I agree with this idea. ’
The wo here shares characteristics with Chinese metalinguistic ni in terms of its semantic status and position. The wo hardly carries propositional meaning, nor does it
‘involve in the structure of the upcoming clause’ (Biq 1991: 315). It is proposed that the metalinguistic wo here appears mainly for achieving a pragmatic function—to relate a good attribute, i.e. a better insurance system, to a participant role who adopts a three-level insurance system.
3.2.1.4 Summary of First Personal Singular
As has been shown in Table 3.2, TV genre has higher incidence of non-canonical use of first person singular (4.1 in TV and 0.7 in daily). Further comparison shows that it is mainly the dramatic and the impersonal uses that contribute to the distributional difference in the two speech genres.
Table 3.5: Non-canonical categories of first person singular
SourcesTypes Daily conversation TV interviews
Impersonal
8 (0.34)55 (1.90)
Dramatic
8 (0.34)61 (2.15)
Metalinguistic 0 (0.00) 1 (0.04)
Total (Frequency) 16 (0.68) 116 (4.09)
The interlocutors’ uses of the impersonal wo as a role model to address occur more often in TV interviews than in daily conversation since the former displays diverse functions such as constructing authority and displaying attitude toward the discussed event. The more frequent use of the dramatic wo in TV interviews reveals the
The interlocutors’ uses of the impersonal wo as a role model to address occur more often in TV interviews than in daily conversation since the former displays diverse functions such as constructing authority and displaying attitude toward the discussed event. The more frequent use of the dramatic wo in TV interviews reveals the