All of us want to communicate
effectively. Without saying a lot but the listeners will be able to understand our intentions. However, it is not easy. When the
speaker uses reference but the listener is unable to understand, it is better
for the speaker to give up using the reference. On the other hand, if the
listener is able to understand the reference that the speaker uses, we can
infer that both of them come from the same community. It is pragmatics connection which is
mentioned in the book at page 20. It shows the listener is a member of the same
community as the speaker.
In Chinese slang, people use water to
represent money. After you look at your wallet, you tell your friend "I
have no 'water', can you lend me some?" Chinese people usually know what
do you mean and they will lend you money instead of giving you a bottle of
Poland Spring water.
In our daily conversation, we always use
referring expression because we assume the listener knows what or who we are referring to. For
example, two girls were looking for Dennis.
Mary: Sandy, do you know
where is Dennis?
Sandy: He is in class.
Mary: Do you know when he
will finish classes?
Sandy: At 4:00
So, in this situation, after "Dennis" was
mentioned by Mary, "Dennis" is no longer repeated. After that, a
pronoun "he" is used instead because both of Sandy and Mary know that each other
understand who they are talking about unless there is another they will mention. Here, “he”
is an anaphoric reference.
In this
example, it wouldn’t be an attributive
use which means whoever fits the description since they were focusing on a
specific “Dennis”. That means it is a referential
use.
Sometimes
people mention the pronoun before they mention the noun. In this situation, it
is called cataphora.
Going back
to the example, in the last dialog, Sandy did not even mention the pronoun.
Why? According Yule on page 23, the speaker, who is Sandy, assumed that the
listener, who is Mary, will be able to infer who she is talking about. Here,
Sandy used zero anaphora.
As Yule
pointed out at page 24 of the book, if a reference is successfully recognized,
indicating a kind of sharing knowledge social connection between the listener
and the speaker.
When one speaks to one another we tend to use all kinds of reference. For instance on September 15, 2012, when Anne asked me:
ReplyDeleteAnne: Have you seen Shanene?
Me: She posted a new video?
Anne: Yes! It is on his channel.
The reference here is Shanene, a youtube video blogger that makes impersonations of a southern white female, while the inference is followed when I say “it” belonging to the reference Shanene.
Reference and inference is an incredibly important key to human communication. To be able to understand one another, we refer and infer information during our conversations unconsciously. For my example, I have chosen an excerpt from a "Friends" episode. In this episode, Joey tells Rachel and Phoebe that Chandler and Monica are dating when he wasn't supposed to. When Monica and Chandler find out that they know, they go along as if they don't know. the four friends ultimately try to get each other to spill the beans. In the excerpt chosen, the exchange of communication between Rachel, Phoebe, and Joey is an excellent example of anaphora, reference, and inference all at the same time!
DeleteWww.youtube.com/watch?v=22sMfullbM0
Sometimes in order for people to understand a conversation or be able to follow the context of the conversation, they must have knowledge about the event being spoken of. People often use key words, of sorts, in a conversation, that a listener would only be able to understand if they have knowledge of the reference to be able to follow the speaker and what they are referring to.
ReplyDeleteHere's an example of reference.
"But if you carry on the way you are, what might that word come to mean? To the people of the Gamma Forests, the word Doctor means "Mighty Warrior." River Song- Character from Doctor Who, Season 6, episode 7. Quote taken directly from: http://www.planetclaire.org/quotes/doctorwho/series-six/a-good-man-goes-to-war/#sthash.bELFxfaC.dpuf
As River Song pointed out, when people hear the word 'doctor' they'll take it to mean 'healer,' but in the series, the Doctor, the main character of the series, is an alien who adopted the name "Doctor", he's extremely knowledgeable and intelligent, and as he travels through time and space, he uses his knowledge to help people. More often than not he ends up destroying the antagonists or villains, even though he doesn't use weapons, he often uses his knowledge to destroy whatever device the villains are using destroying the villains along with the device. Therefore, he can be considered a 'warrior' of sorts, because he stands up and fights for those who need help.
I decided to use the quote I used as an example to illustrate reference, because it goes to show that anyone who doesn't watch doctor who, unless they watched doctor who, or at the very least watched this particular episode -in which it is more explicitly explained- people wouldn't be able to understand why River Song would be correlating the word "doctor" with "might warrior".